GUNS ( Part 3: Shooting Incidents and Training )

Shooting Incidents and Training 

For those of you that have seen the body-cam footage, it is remarkable how quickly these incidents escalate from routine to life threatening.  Rarely is there opportunity for de-escalation when what starts as a professional interface with the public degrades into brawling and grappling for a firearm.  Often the officer has been struck, or his weapon has been compromised.  He is undoubtedly angry.  His authority has been tested; his well-being is in danger.  He may be injured.  He is caught between the desire to be safe and the requirement to do his duty. The adrenalin is flowing and the fight-or-flight response is in high gear.  You’re essentially on autopilot where we become victims of our own physiology: blood is shunted from places where you don’t need it to places where you do.  Your blood is diverted from your GI tract to your skeletal muscles and you often off-load waste you don’t need, thus the effect of peeing yourself…. or worse. All the better to take flight.  Your heart rate increases as blood is pumped to your muscles and your airway dilates to allow you to take in more air, oxygen to fuel your engine. You sweat to cool your muscles, your hands shake from the epinephrine surge.  Your pupils constrict, you get tunnel vision, better to see distance and focus on your escape.  Your brain’s higher function isn’t required, only the instinctual desire to escape or fight.  At this point the situation has deteriorated to something primal.  

Training can mitigate much of this fight or flight response and, of course, the best response is not to get into this level of confrontation to start with.  But that would involve either a level of social working skills that officers may not possess, skills that may expose them to a greater potential for injury should the efforts fail, or the option of not showing up to the confrontation at all. And when the interaction deteriorates into combat, how much training do officers actually receive in high stress confrontations?  In speaking with a State Police officer, the answer is: not much.  Officers are required to qualify with their sidearm at the range to meet minimal standards of marksmanship.  But slow-fire marksmanship is altogether a different skill than shooting under stress. In recent years practical shooting has become very popular in the civilian sector with competitions and courses available to the gun owner. IPDA (International Defensive Pistol Association) in particular, offers shooters the opportunity to run courses that present the participant with scenarios that require quick decision making, marksmanship and using cover while being timed, perhaps the best simulation of real life shooting situations this side of actually taking fire.  The Police apparently have no such program in place.  They are often required to practice on their own, purchasing their own ammunition.  And as many of you might know, finding ammunition these days is a feat in itself.  Ammunition stores have been depleted by a run on ammunition as the Biden Administration introduces more anti-gun legislation and news of rioting and lawlessness dominates the airwaves.  Common handgun ammunition is virtually impossible to find and, when it is available, can command prices as high as a dollar a round, up from Trump era prices in the range of 16 to 20 cents a round for 9mm, for example.  The situation has become so bleak that many defensive pistol courses, offered by firearms training schools like the SIG Academy or Gunsite for instance, have had to cancel their classes and students have had to drop out when they are unable to find or afford the 2500 rounds required for enrollment.  Even professional shooters who compete internationally in IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation), a more technical precision shooting competition, have had to limit their practice time and reduce their appearances at competitions when they routinely digest over 20000 rounds a year.  Practice has become either unavailable or unaffordable and alternatives like dry-fire drills, air-soft guns or even using the more affordable and available .22 caliber round does not simulate the recoil, the noise, or the skill of reacquiring your target after each shot that comes with using the real thing.