Instapundit, in an aside regarding the NYPD shootings in Midtown NYC: “That said, I’ve seen a fair number of ‘trained law enforcement professionals’ shoot, and generally speaking their skills aren’t particularly impressive.”
OK, but just last weekend I shot with a former IUPD cop who spent three hours cutting the center out of targets. With a Glock, but we all have our idiosyncracies.
What do you want to bet that the real difference is that NYPD cops don’t grow up shooting guns, and native cornfed Indiana boys do?
I don’t disagree with the rest of the what he says regarding the heat of the moment, but I wonder if screening for cops ought to include whether or not they are actually comfortable handling firearms? And if not, maybe they need more intensive gun-handling training and follow-on practice.
Just thinking out loud.
I can teach anyone to shoot in a half hour. In a week, I could have anyone who can follow instructions shooting at expert level. The caveat here is that you’re shooting at inanimate objects like a paper target or a coke can on a fence post. Law enforcement firearms training has advanced significantly in the last few decades. They can create some very realistic situations and put the officer under a lot of stress. When the odds aren’t completely stacked against the police (like a guy pulling a gun out of nowhere on a traffic stop), they will prevail in the vast majority of circumstances if they follow their training.
The one thing that firearms training programs will never be able to create is a situation where you’re facing someone that can shoot back at you. That puts a level of stress on the mind and body that can’t be replicated in training. The body actually goes through physical and chemical changes. It’s one thing to be able to punch that ten ring every time when the target can’t shoot back at you and quite another story when they can.
But I still think there is something to the logic that says if you start shooting as a youngster, you’re going to be a better shot as an adult in just about any scenario — which is really all I’m saying. Someone who hasn’t been a shooter all their life simply isn’t going to have the comfort level with the weapon that you or I or a lot of the other gun afficianados around here do. And that has to figure into how a person — any person, I don’t care if they’re a cop or a housewife — handles a real-world personal defense situation.
I’ll freely admit that I could be wrong 🙂 I just think that cops from blue-state, gun-averse cultures are not going to handle these situations the same way a bunch of good old country boys from Indiana who’ve been plinking and hunting all their lives would.
Like I said above, I could have most people shooting at expert level in a week if they can follow instructions and will invest the practice time required. It’s not just a matter of being a good shot. It’s a matter of being a good shot when it means saving your own life or someone else’s. I’m not sure I can properly communicate this to someone who hasn’t been through police firearms training or a similar course offered to civilians.
Okay, people that grew up around guns will have a big head start, but even someone who has never picked up a gun in their life can catch up quickly. Shooting accurately is a learned skill that can be taught to most people without difficulty. Police recruits have been through background investigations, interviews, and psychological testing to make sure they have no qualms about using deadly force if the situation calls for it.
Take my case, for instance. I grew up shooting rifles and shotguns, but when I arrived at the police academy, I probably hadn’t fired more than a hundred rounds out of a handgun in my entire life and the majority of those were fired shortly before heading off to the academy. When I left the academy, I was consistently shooting 295 or better (out of 300) on a PPC course. That was on a range in the daytime in a very controlled environment. That’s the easy part.
I went through a lot of shoot-don’t shoot training where targets popped up and you had to make an instant decision whether to shoot or not. One target might have an old lady carrying a bag of groceries or a kid on a bicycle and the next might be a bad guy pointing a gun at you. This was in 1983. The technology for that kind of training is very advanced now with video and other enhancements that can make the situations more realistic, which benefits the trainee tremendously.
The kid that grew up shooting a gun was never put in a situation where he was in low or no light and couldn’t see his front sight, was carrying a flashlight in his off hand and had to shoot with one hand (try it sometime), had an armed bad guy staring him down or charging at him with a knife. He never had to consider that there might be innocent people around who could be injured. He never had to chase a bad guy for three or four hundred yards as fast as he could run and then, totally out of breath, draw his gun and shoot accurately at the guy pointing a gun at him. And in 99.99 percent of cases, he’s never had anyone shooting at him. Take all of that into consideration and then toss in the psychological aspect and the fact that your body is actually undergoing chemical changes. In those situations, I don’t think growing up around guns gives you even the slightest advantage. It’s the quality of the training you receive as a police officer, how you respond to that training, and to what extent you stick to that training that determines not only whether you’ll survive a deadly encounter, but also whether you’ll do something really stupid that will get someone else hurt or killed or get you and your department sued.
I can’t say I know what it’s like from experience. I never fired a shot in two years as a police officer and probably didn’t have my gun out of its holster more than a dozen times. I had the best training available at the time. I practiced. I tried my best to overcome the stress and nerves and keep my head when I was scared. And any cop that tells you he’s never been scared is lying. I like to think I would have prevailed in a bad situation, but there is no way to tell.