Some years ago our office was issued P220's and S&W 36's or 60's. The snubbies saw use so little that I went on a binge one winter refurbishing and removing rust.

The outgoing sheriff had a love for firearms and martial arts. He carried a custom 1911 with a very fine trigger. The incoming sheriff hated firearms and I believe he was afraid of them. He did a great job uniting a number of agencies in mutual aid and tamping down political fires, but he was more politician.

One qualification, the state brought in pneumatic targets. These were a big step up from the Paper normally shot, and turned 90 degrees on command from a range officer with a timer.

Everyone met the qualification but the sheriff, who failed three times with the handgun. We all ran it each time so he didn't get put on the spot. He finally. made it through a reduced qualification, and we had to shoot Remington 870's. The course was fairly straight forward, 25 yards max with a rifled slug, everything else close. The slug was a gimme because by then the target was pulverized. All except the sheriff's.

The sheriff had a clean slate, because he couldn't hit anything with the shotgun. He was finally brought to a few yards from the target, the pneumatics disconnected, and the target fixed. He was given a single shot, aimed, no time limit, with a rifled slug. He core drilled it, center mass.

I shit not. He dropped the shotgun at his feet and began jumping up and down, and yelling "I got it, I got it!" He was given a passing score.

That office now has a special weapons team. I stopped through years ago and some of the guys were at the local outdoor range doing a charity shoot with the local cowboy action club. It was called "cops vs. cowboys," with entry and funds given to charity.

One of the cowboy action shooters asked if I'd like to try a round with his guns, which I did, including a really nice Model 97 shotgun. Then I was offered a run-through with the teams pistols, which included custom 1911's, Model 870's, and a .40 S&W M4 with an Eotech. After we were done, a friend there offered me a few magazines through their replacement rifles for the M4's, which were brandnew G36's. He was kind enough to give me a magazine dump and a little trigger time, with their newly funded toys.

Some of the guys could shoot very well. Some, like the sheriff, would be lucky to hit the target on any given day, with all the time in the world to do it. Not everyone with a badge is a firearm enthusiast, and not everyone spends much time outside of meeting the minimum standard.

I've seen that in several other fields, too; it's something I think you'll find in nearly any endeavor.

Why do you believe all shots must hit the targets in qualifications? Do you believe that all shots will hit the target in gunfights? Do you believe that because a shot “hits” a target that the bullet always stops immediately and never continues on after the hit?

I fully understand the dynamics of a real world shooting.

I was involved in one.

I also fully understand that in a "real" shooting:

not all rounds are going to hit..

and not all hits will be effective in stopping the threat...

Having said that, if you condition your officers to be mindful of their rounds during qualification and training, there will be fewer stray rounds during an actual shooting.

At the end of the day, if you demand quality, you will get quality. It comes down to that.

quote:

Originally posted by mo4040:
Having said that, if you condition your officers to be mindful of their rounds during qualification and training, there will be fewer stray rounds during an actual shooting.

I am curious how you know that. Are there (valid) studies that support the idea that no-miss qualifications improve law enforcement officers’ accuracy in defensive shootings? If that were true, it’s too bad that information isn’t more widely known and that more (or even all) qualification courses don’t have that standard. Your own research seems to indicate that most agencies disagree with your contention which is evidently a very minority view.

In any event we can agree that conditioning is important. Some conditioning is good. Some conditioning is bad. I believe that no-miss qualifications are more likely to instill bad habits than good ones.

To reiterate, though, if you can point me to studies that support your contention I would be most grateful even if they would change some of my beliefs that I have held for a long time; I am always eager to learn new things.

First, I have no research to support the position that I am coming from.

However, I do know from personal experience (from my real job and from the shooting that I was involved in) that during a crisis, you will not "rise to the occasion," but instead will default to the level of training that you have mastered.

If you require very high standards in training/qualification, chances are very good that in a given situation, they will perform very well (albeit not perfectly).

Yes, I sincerely agree with you about how conditioning is critical. A close friend was a Lt in a FL dept back in the early 80's and he recounted his experiences with POST and such from his era:

He explained that the "norm" back then was for officers to 'fire two and assess...' The problem with this being that when shit went down, that is exactly what they did. There were cases where there was a need for more than two rounds to stop the threat. They shot twice and paused...

Another problem (this was during the era of wheel guns) was about the accepted reload protocol and how it led to deaths during OIS. He stated that a dept (I don't know if it was his) had the policy during qual that you shot your 6 rounds and then held up you hand when done. An officer did that during a shooting and nearly got himself killed.



So, from my personal experience (again, I have no independently verifiable sources to back up my views about the subject), I feel strongly that demanding higher standards (to include round accountability) will produce better results on the street.

Yes, the round accountability thing for qualification is a minority view. I believe it is because for many depts, setting a higher standard (round accountability, for starters) would cause issues in having enough qualified officers.

The problem (in my opinion) is born of two things:

One...most folks becoming sworn peace officers are not 'gun' people. Also, there are other issues WRT hiring practices and such.

Two...quality training requires an investment of resources that most departments are short on (time and money).

The result is that most depts simply water things down to get by.

Quality training (with the associated high standards) will provide proper conditioning that will enhance officer survivability, effectiveness, and minimize un-accounted rounds.

Are depts willing (or able) to do this? That is the question...

quote:

Originally posted by mo4040:
First, I have no research to support the position that I am coming from.

However, I do know from personal experience (from my real job and from the shooting that I was involved in) that during a crisis, you will not "rise to the occasion," but instead will default to the level of training that you have mastered.

Time and time again this is observed. Many a "study" and entire training courses are built around an idea that you can be mediocre and rise to magnificent when it counts. The truth is you train for magnificent, and hope for mediocre. This is the difference between actual experience, and theoretical gunfighting. Show me a study, and I'll show you the likelyhood of a bunch of guys who came up with a conclusion, and then went in search of data to support it. Not the other way around. One of my absolute favorite "Rooster crows, sun comes up, rooster had to make the sun come up" conclusions comes from Force Science Institute where they concluded from studying staged force on force with "SWAT officers to rookies" that everyone just point shoots. Their data was impressive, but what they failed to mention was that particular agency had poor results on the street, and even the higher level shooters (SWAT) were C class shooters at absolute best. Rooster crows, sun comes up. About a year after that, they brought in Jeff Gonzales to train up their instructional staff because their actual shootings, even by SWAT were a "draw" at best. The further-est thing from clear wins.

You look at and study the tier one units that are kicking doors overseas, and their experience mirrors what you are saying.

You can point to virtually every study, and I'll show you how to debunk it. What works is putting in the manhours. Beyond that, you get what you get. Clearly anyone who doesn't see this hasn't had to testify in federal court in lawsuits on what is acceptable/common practice and defend the how's and why's of what they do. The idea that people from larger agencies don't get small agencies is that red herring that is flopping on the floor of the boat. Small agencies are held to the exact same standard in federal court as the larger agencies. The people being served by small agencies deserve them to act and train like professionals. No excuses.

But, then again, some people can’t figure out for the life of them why putting a red dot on a pistol that forces you to clean up your Fundamentals is a good thing. It may be deep seated ignorance or an unwillingness to change. Either way, those egotistical things hurt training programs almost as bad as cutting corners.

quote:

Originally posted by mo4040:
First, I have no research to support the position that I am coming from.

All right, thank you. I did not want to miss some significant data.

In Utah we use our post standard qual. 50 rounds all times out to 20 yards. Then a night shoot with and without flashlight also 50 rounds. We qual once a year. We have to qual on the AR and Shotgun.

Happily my agency has monthly shoots and twice a year we spend an entire day doing training outdoors at a range which has a shoot house, shotgun and AR drills and always some PITA training that has us rolling around in the dirt and shooting with one hand.

We also have active shooter training twice a year with various simunitions and scenarios.

50 rounds standing at various distances to 75 feet once a year. Hope I never get attacked by a white piece of copy paper standing still. Our State qual has no real world relevance period. It grew out of the era when officers shot one handed standing with wheel guns.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by mo4040:
First, I have no research to support the position that I am coming from.

However, I do know from personal experience (from my real job and from the shooting that I was involved in) that during a crisis, you will not "rise to the occasion," but instead will default to the level of training that you have mastered.

Time and time again this is observed. Many a "study" and entire training courses are built around an idea that you can be mediocre and rise to magnificent when it counts. The truth is you train for magnificent, and hope for mediocre. This is the difference between actual experience, and theoretical gunfighting. Show me a study, and I'll show you the likelyhood of a bunch of guys who came up with a conclusion, and then went in search of data to support it. Not the other way around. One of my absolute favorite "Rooster crows, sun comes up, rooster had to make the sun come up" conclusions comes from Force Science Institute where they concluded from studying staged force on force with "SWAT officers to rookies" that everyone just point shoots. Their data was impressive, but what they failed to mention was that particular agency had poor results on the street, and even the higher level shooters (SWAT) were C class shooters at absolute best. Rooster crows, sun comes up. About a year after that, they brought in Jeff Gonzales to train up their instructional staff because their actual shootings, even by SWAT were a "draw" at best. The further-est thing from clear wins.

You look at and study the tier one units that are kicking doors overseas, and their experience mirrors what you are saying.

You can point to virtually every study, and I'll show you how to debunk it. What works is putting in the manhours. Beyond that, you get what you get. Clearly anyone who doesn't see this hasn't had to testify in federal court in lawsuits on what is acceptable/common practice and defend the how's and why's of what they do. The idea that people from larger agencies don't get small agencies is that red herring that is flopping on the floor of the boat. Small agencies are held to the exact same standard in federal court as the larger agencies. The people being served by small agencies deserve them to act and train like professionals. No excuses.

But, then again, some people can’t figure out for the life of them why putting a red dot on a pistol that forces you to clean up your Fundamentals is a good thing. It may be deep seated ignorance or an unwillingness to change. Either way, those egotistical things hurt training programs almost as bad as cutting corners.

This deserves a re-post.

quote:

Originally posted by Chowser:
Hahahahahaha

Ohio’s qualification course is 25 rounds.

We “qualify” once a year to get it out of the way. Then we can train.

This thing you call training.....what is that?

We now qualify 4 times a year: Rifle and shotgun once, pistol 4x. Which means little or no training. We have not shot a combat course in years. I do stuff on my own time to keep proficient. I also have a little airsoft range in basement to practice drawing, low light tactics. shooting while moving, and other drills.

quote:

Originally posted by officerdave:
Our State qual has no real world relevance period. It grew out of the era when officers shot one handed standing with wheel guns.

Funnily enough, it was only ~5 years ago that Arkansas updated our state qual procedure to remove the requirement that every section be shot in groups of 6 rounds. The previous version, which was still in use as of the mid-2010s, was still built around 6-shot wheel guns.

Even better, depending on how anal the instructor running the range at the time was, you sometimes were only allowed to load 6 rounds at a time in each of your magazines for your semiauto.

But the newer version is still doable with a 5 or 6 shot wheel gun, since you never fire more than 5 rounds in one string without reloading.

First, I wholeheartedly disagree that qualification courses are useless. A qual course may not reflect operational firearms competency but an instructor can build a program off what he sees on the qual days. Officers want to run and gun on the high speed scenarios but they can't stand at 7 yds and hit a Q target. I have seen some swat guys and especially, lately, active shooter instructors that don't have basic marksmanship skills. They teach skills and shooting scenarios with FX that I know they couldn't do on a flat range.