Can You Shoot Better Than A Cop?

January 25, 2019

John Buol Guest Article, SensibleShooter , , , , , , 2 Comments

From Tamara Keel

Can You Shoot Better Than A Cop?

He cites a published study that “…broke down the shooters into three classifications: expert, intermediate, and novice. Experts had either finished the academy shooting course or had been trained in the military while intermediates had no formal academy training but had shot before in either recreational settings or had military rifle training. Finally, the novices were just that. Many of them had never even held a gun in their lives.”

You can see the problem already, right? Military handgun training, outside of a handful of job descriptions, is laughable. The handgun training from a typical LE academy is better than that, but still unlikely to turn out any pistol wizards, either.

Then comes the part that doesn’t automatically follow, which is that us non-po-po shoot better than that. Well, we probably do… assuming we’re an active competitive shooter and/or have had some formal training ourselves.

But as far as the general run of the mill shooting public? I go to the public shooting range. A lot. I see how the general shooting public shoots. It’s not very well. The average shooter at a public range finds the 7 ring of a B-27 at seven yards to be a less than clout shot.

I am not a very good shooter. I’m the special ed student at gun school. When I walk the prize table at a match, I find myself wondering if the tablecloth is not the most valuable thing left on the table, since I already have a Bore Snake and a three ounce bottle of CLP. But when I go to the public range of a weekend? I’m almost always a veritable ninja compared to the shooters on my right and left.

The average shooter is never presented with an opportunity to find out how bad they are, because things like scores and timers are foreign to their experience. It is possible to go to the range monthly for years and years and never see any meaningful improvement because it’s hard to improve that which you do not measure. There’s a lot of Dunning-Kruger in the shooting world.

It’s worth noting that Dr. Dunning’s solution to the cognitive bias experienced by novices that bears his name is to do exactly what Tamara Keel recommends here.

Dismal Truth: Police Use-of-Force Training

December 1, 2017

John Buol TacticalPractical , 4 Comments

Dr. Bill Lewinski executive director of the Force Science Institute often notes in his public presentations that the average high school football player gets more training in his sport in his brief career than the average peace officer receives in use-of-force instruction across his or her entire working life.

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In a first-of-its-kind survey in conjunction with Calibre Press and Crawford Coates has confirmed that dismal truth.

Calibre Press editors invited readers of its popular Street Survival newsletter to complete an anonymous poll regarding their departmental training policies. Nearly 900 officers from small agencies to large participated, with these results:

  • Range time. Nearly two-thirds of officers said they are required by policy to shoot on the range with their sidearm only once (23.66%) or twice (37.66%) a year. Only about 8% have to shoot as often as monthly.
  • Qualification. Monthly official qualification with their sidearm is required for only 1.37%, while roughly 84% need to qualify only annually (46.81%) or semi-annually (37.24%).
  • Scenarios. The monthly requirement shrinks even more (to 0.91%) when it comes to “dynamic ‘shoot/don’t shoot’ scenario-type training.” One-quarter never have to experience such training, and over half (56.26%) do so only once a year or less often.
  • DT training. Close to 15% of officers said they are never required by policy to do “defensive/control tactics-type training.” For two-thirds (63.82%), such training is mandated only once a year (42.32%) or less (21.5%). Fewer than 2% must train hands-on monthly.
  • Less-lethal. Monthly requirement virtually fades off the chart (at 0.57%) when it comes to training with “less-than-lethal weapons” such as TASERS, batons, and OC spray. Annual training predominates at over 55%. One in five officers trains less frequently than that, and over 10% never have to engage in this type of training.

Jim Glennon, Calibre’s director of training and lead instructor for its Street Survival Seminar observes, “The line is being pushed by the media and by critics like the Police Executive Research Forum that departments and academies are overly invested in ‘warrior’-type military training, spending too many hours on the range and teaching defensive tactics at the expense of emphasizing communication.

“In reality, as this survey shows, we’re just scratching the surface of use-of-force training, teaching the very barest fundamentals. When a quarter of departments never do dynamic force training and over half train with scenarios at most once a year, it is very disingenuous to claim that use-of-force training is over-emphasized.

“When officers over-react or under-react on the street, it’s usually because they have not been sufficiently conditioned to respond appropriately through realistic training under stress. What’s needed is not less training in this area but more.”

Dr. Lewinski adds, “The public expectation is that law enforcement officers will perform flawlessly when thrust into life-or-death force encounters. But when these are the standards of practice and training demanded of officers by their departments, how can anything even approaching perfection reasonably be anticipated?

“Yes, conscientious officers will supplement the minimal requirements with training on their own time and dime. But that’s an approach for enhancing individual excellence, not a universal solution.

“Raising the use-of-force training bar by policy for all officers and designing training that truly reflects the challenges of the street should be the top priorities of any demands for police ‘reform.’ ”

Cops same as Novice Shooters

October 5, 2016

John Buol SensibleShooter , , 1 Comment

[T]he research shows that officers on average are only marginally better than lesser-trained shooters in terms of getting rounds on target

Despite being a low percentage occurrence, a high stakes event such as a fight warrants developing sufficient skill and is the reason police and military expend resources attempting to build this. Success rates are sometimes lacking. Hit rates and percentages are bandied about. Some suggest curriculum changes, increases or decreases to standard square range exercises, changes of doctrinal shooting positions, and the increased or decreased emphasis of sighted fire.

Here is the terrible truth almost everyone fails to address. Any change in doctrine, curriculum, or funding is doomed to failed improvements until a progressive skill standard is enforced. It doesn’t matter if the number of required qualifications are quadrupled if participants are continually held to the same, elementary, basic, easy, low standards merely sufficient to graduate academy/recruit/basic training. And training isn’t “advanced” unless it includes an actual, measured skill assessment students are held to, one that increases in difficulty over time. The number of training hours or successful qualification results are meaningless until faced with scored tests that are more challenging over time.

Studies of this nature continue to find police and military personnel are only slightly more skilled than those never having fired a gun before. This is because most police and military personnel are in fact only slightly more skilled than those never having fired a gun before.
https://firearmusernetwork.com/firearm-training-naive-shooter-law-enforcement-hit-probability/

Based on the personnel chosen for “expert”, “intermediate”, and “naive” groups in this study, every one of them are actually at a novice level. There’s no difference in results because there is no real difference in skill between them.

The skill difference between a completely untrained shooter, marginally-qualified personnel, and personnel capable of “expert” or near “perfect” qualification scores is marginal. They’re all still novices, though some of them are slightly worse than the others. It’s like the difference in mathematics knowledge between a second-grade child scoring a 70 or 90 on an elementary arithmetic quiz. It’s the reason there is no connection found between combat and qualification range results.
https://firearmusernetwork.com/the-connection-between-combat-and-range-results/

More:

Study: Newbies Better Able to Kill Assailants With Head Shot Than Cops

 

Firearm Training Reality – The Naive Shooter from a Law Enforcement Perspective: Hit Probability

May 5, 2015

John Buol Guest Article, Shooting , , , , , 5 Comments

Force Science Institute published The Naive Shooter from a Law Enforcement Perspective: Hit Probability, a study that identifies the problem with shooters that remain at novice skill levels.

The real risks during deadly police shootouts:
Accuracy of the naive shooter
http://www.forcescience.org/articles/naiveshooter.pdf

Force Science News #280:
Eye-opening study suggests deep flaws in academy firearms training
http://www.forcescience.org/fsnews/280.html

By actual test, an average police recruit completing academy firearms training is only marginally more skilled in shooting than a person who has never shot or even held a firearm. The study found that personnel completing military or police handgun instruction and passing qualification enjoyed a mere 13% improvement over complete novices. Between groups labeled “expert”, “intermediate”, and “novice” there was no effective difference in skill between the identified groups.

Force Science Institute executive director Dr. Bill Lewinski said, “[R]esults indicate an alarming need for improved firearms training for officers,” because despite being academy graduates and passing mandated firearm qualifications the new officers “were a mere 13%” more accurate than novices in shooting at distances where a high proportion of officer-involved shootings occur. What these statistics appear to imply is that officer firearms training is not extensive enough and occurs too sparsely for officers to gain, and maintain, the expert level of accuracy with their service weapons that is expected of them.”
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