I’ve trained under most of the top guys in the country and have a PhD in Criminal Justice Education. Most importantly, I’ve been involved in several shootings personally. . . . → Read More: Sighted vs. Point Shooting
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The Immediate Action Medical Kit, its basic components, uses and practical applications described in the following text are intended for the Active Shooter scenario where a hasty team comprised of one or more officers are responding to a threat. . . . → Read More: Basic Immediate Action Medical Kit Way back in the 1980s a company called GLOCK introduced the Model 17 9mm pistol. It had, of all things, a polymer frame. Now I’m not technically savvy enough to tell you the difference between polymer and plastic but, in my opinion, too many people jumped on the “oh my gosh, a plastic gun!” bandwagon and talked negatively about such a design. Almost thirty years later it seems that the polymer frame design has not only become accepted but is often preferred because of how much lighter it makes the weapon. The Glock Model 17 has been joined by twenty other models (available in the U.S.). Nearly every other major manufacturer of firearms has a product line that includes polymer frames. Across the span of the past couple decades I’ve owned more than a few and I thought it might be fun to take a look at them. Continue reading Don’t Fear The Plastic Experienced shooters know that there are many components of skill involved when placing a shot on a target. In fact, the seven basic fundamentals of marksmanship were developed and listed so that we could teach new shooters how to shoot accurately. That said, just because someone masters the seven basic marksmanship skills does not mean they are an accomplished shooter – especially in the worlds of competition and combat shooting. What has to be added to the physical skills mastery is an understanding and mastery of the tactics involved. Since the most commonly perceived end goal of both is put accurate bullets into the target as quickly as possible we often forget that the tactics for competition shooting and the tactics for combat shooting are different. It is common knowledge that a suspect, armed with an edged weapon and within twenty-one feet of a police officer presents a deadly threat. Why? Because the “average” man can run that twenty-one feet in about one-point-five seconds; the same one-point-five seconds it will take that police officer to recognize danger, draw and point . . . → Read More: 21 Feet Is Way Too Close!! Hopefully all of our contemporary warriors know what an OODA Loop is. Just in case: OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It is the human decision making cycle first documented by fighter pilot John Boyd. Long time readers know that I have reviewed each step and all of the inputs / implications affecting each, as well as examining the hidden “O” (the “Oh, Sh*t!). Just recently I received an email asking me to expand on how we can perform After Action Reviews (AARs) on our OODA Loops (repetitive cycles of the process) to see if we can identify where we went wrong, or where we did exactly the right thing. Such intimate examination of our own decision making process under stress is critical if we’re to improve our performance in such situations. Internationally recognized trainer, LtCol Dave Grossman, says that 75% of all combat learning occurs after the training events during the After Action Review. If that’s true then we are clearly doing ourselves a disservice by NOT performing AARs on our own decision making process. Continue reading AAR Your OODA Do you remember your police academy firearms training? During the summer of 1986, at the local county police academy, a basic recruit class enjoyed a whole week of classroom and range training. Of the almost thirty student officers, only two or three had a difficult time qualifying on the paper targets (B27s) as they turned on a timer. The question raised by several instructors at that time was: How many of those student officers had been trained to the point where drawing, pointing/aiming their weapon and firing had become second nature? Continue reading Is Your Firearms Training Complete? Criticism: Critique: (definitions provided by www.dictionary.com) As with many of the articles I write, especially those that deal with the meaning of words and how we use them – and how our understanding of them may motivate our actions – I started out looking at the definitions. As a 22+ year police veteran and an 18+ year police trainer, it has always seemed obvious to me that there is a difference between criticism and critique. Think about it in this way and the difference becomes glaringly obvious: Would you rather have someone criticize your work? or critique your work? The first definition I found for criticism had these five words at the beginning: the act of passing judgment. Consider those five words and the negativity they imply. Passing judgment… In our court system, judgment is made after all the facts are weighed. In other words, criticism is delivered after the critique is performed. That is a huge difference that is very important and one we need to remember. The three officers moved together toward the front door of the school. It was a high school, mid morning, and students were streaming out of the doors… incoherent, some screaming, some babbling, some just quite and looking shocked. The officers had to squeeze in between students to get through the door – moving in against the tide that was moving out. The motivation for the outward tide was easy to guess: screams and gunshots could be heard from deeper inside the school. The lead officer was armed with his duty handgun and an MP5 submachine gun. He had just finished getting qualified with the weapon and happened to have it in his cruiser trunk. It was pure chance that he was going through the door with more than his handgun. The other two officers with him were armed only with their duty handguns. Nobody ever said the Glock Model 22 .40 caliber weapon was bad, but both officers were wishing for something with a little more reach. Continue reading Games & Simulation in Training Since 1999 and the occurrence of the shootings at Columbine High School police departments nationwide have been integrating Active Shooter – sometimes also called Immediate Response – training into their operations. This became mandatory because Columbine proved that law enforcement protocols as they existed then were unacceptable. Between 1966 when Charles Whitman went up into the Texas Tower and started sniping people on the street and 1999 when two students started shooting students inside Columbine High School the “average” law enforcement professional – when responding to a shooting, hostage or barricade situation – was expected to set up a perimeter and wait for those who were better equipped and better trained: SWAT. Once it was proven that society in general was not prepared for police officers or deputies to sit safely outside while children and teachers were hunted inside, Active Shooter training was born. Basic Tactics were developed in an effort to prepare Joe Patrol Officer for response to such situations. A couple of minor faults were identified in the training and many agencies have now evolved their training to address those shortcomings. Some of them are / were: Continue reading Evolving Immediate Response Training |
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