The other night, while reviewing police-involved shooting videos—not to focus on what’s different, but to identify what remains consistent—I came across a video from the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office (state unknown at this time) . It featured two deputies conducting their firearms qualification under the guidance of a firearms instructor/range officer.
Every state mandates how often law enforcement officers must qualify with each weapons system they’re certified to carry—be it handgun, shotgun, rifle, or subgun. In my agency, because I was on SWAT, we were required to qualify quarterly and maintain a minimum score of 97% to remain on the team. (That was a departmental regulation I wrote) In most jurisdictions, however, the standard is once or twice a year. In my agency you had to score at least a 70% or be suspended and turn in your take home car until such time you could successfully qualify. I have seen many sad faces over this when officers were unable to perform at the minimum standard and blamed me instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.
It’s important to remember—and the Supreme Court has affirmed this repeatedly—qualification is NOT training. States also dictate how many rounds must be fired, from what distances, and from which positions such as strongside, weakside, one handed, two handed, standing, kneeling, prone, barricade ETC.. Also included are administrative and tactical reloads.
Overall, the Highlands County qualification looked solid. But here’s the issue: I doubt the firearms instructor is also a defensive tactics (DT) instructor. Why do I say that?
In the drill, the officers were instructed to draw and fire one-handed—strong-hand only—on the buzzer. The right-handed officer on the left had his support-hand thumb hooked inside his duty belt. The left-handed officer on the right had his support hand tucked behind his back.
If the firearms instructor had DT experience, they’d have been all over that. In a real-world encounter, your support hand must be up and in front of you, ready to block/evade/trap the arm off an advancing threat. Tucking it away is a training scar that could get someone killed. Too many officers do the bare minimum and will not seek training beyond what the agency offers or will pay for them to attend, nor will they train on their own. These officers are lukewarm and disgust me.
If you carry a firearm—whether law enforcement or civilian—understand this: most firearms training out there focuses on just running the gun, the mechanics and putting rounds on target. While these are important perishable skills it’s actually a small part of the larger mindset and skill set needed to protect yourself and others. You have to blend interpersonal communication / de-escalation skills / verbal Judo, and open hand combatives that allow you to deal with open hand threats, impact weapons, edged weapons, and multiple attackers. It sounds like a lot because it is, and if you don’t want to pursue this as a way of life then go flip burgers or don’t carry a gun.
Our training time is limited—both in how often we can train and how much time we have to prepare for what could be the worst moment of our lives which could be the next time you walk of the station or your house. Knowing that, we must be humble enough to study real violent encounters and refine our training accordingly. It should result in training that promotes maximum efficiency with minimal effort.
TAC out
