[QUOTE=CoLawman]
Quote:
I'm not familiar with LEO in your part of the country but I can assure you that LE in my part of the country shoot once a month mandatory and qualify twice a year. Failing to qualify results in remedial training. Failure is not based on a percentage. If one round fails to strike home, it is a failure. I can also assure you that firearms training in this part of the country (Colorado, including Bailey) is not stress free. In fact all training includes stressors to induce excelerated heart rates, noise irritants, visual impairments, timed to include reloads etc.
Quite a few people have taken some cheap shots at Jeff Co SWAT in regards to their actions at Bailey. Those officers, like our SWAT team, trains 20 hours a month in addition to other department wide firearms monthly training. This does not include the extended training seminars they attend annually.
A friend of mine sent me an email shortly after this incident. He was the agent who spent those agonizing minutes with Emily's father outside that school house. He was with him when the shots rang out and he was with him when his daughter was brought out of the school. NOT ONCE did Emily's father say a disparaging word about LE. Not once have you heard anyone from that community complain about the actions of LE that day. In fact the media reports relayed just the opposite.
Contrary to misguided beliefs there are highly qualifed LE throughout this nation. Period.
422 officers have been killed in the line of duty in the last two years and 9 months. If one takes into consideration the actual attacks on officers during that time period, I would say that the relatively low ratio of officers killed is evidence of their qualifications.
Perhaps some of the critics could offer their opinion on "Active Shooter" training that is now part of annual training for LE. I can assure you that the "initial responders" have fired far more than two boxes of ammunition and are trained to enter and seek the shooter out. Interestingly enough the "Small Town Bailey officers" did exactly as they were trained to do and entered the school immediately and located the gunman and hostages, containing the area of threat and allowing the rest of the students to get out of the school. They did not wait outside the school for SWAT.
My my ...... and reading the rest of your post, disparaging LE. You must have gotten a speeding ticket! Your comments certainly reveal a bias. Maybe you should become a Sheriff and straighten all of us Barney Fifes out Andy!
|
I recently spent two years working with and training LEOs across the country. I have no hate or disrespect for LEOs. They do a tough job for in most cases, low wages. At the same time, we have to be realistic. Perhaps you are too close to the cause to do that.
Your experience may be valid in your jurisdiction. I respectfully suggest that it is not nationwide.
You take offense where none is intended. The fact is that in most cases, state requirements drive LE firearms training and qualification. Most departments I have worked with tend toward the low side of that requirement rather than the upper end. For example, as I understand it, NC (and the local departments) require only 12 rounds fired per year in low-light for night qualification. I consider that criminally negligent. As you so thoughtfully suggested, I do not live in Mayberry and cannot run for Sheriff there, but I can get a bus to Mt. Airy and be there in less than an hour.
I am sure that since Columbine, and other high profile cases in Colorado, LE there has received new focus and additional requirements for HR.
Here is a fact. NDD has described a requirement for a full mission profile assault on a linear target with discriminatating fires. I personally do not believe that any LE HR team in the nation, to include the FBI HRT, is up to that standard. The only units that are, do not write cites, run radar, investigate traffic accidents, intervene in domestic situations, bust dopers, sit in court, or any of the other mundane, but necessary things an LE does. They shoot, and practice HR everyday. Period. Probably more rounds in one day than most LEOs fire in a year. Again, that is not a comment on anyones' manliness, motivation, or dedication. It is budget and mission driven.
Take a look at the primary users of this board. Military members understand that comments about officers on a military board mean military officers. You know, LTs, Captains, Majors, that sort of thing. LEO means cops.
I am sorry that you took offense where none was intended. At the same time, I stand by my comments based on the number of departments and tac teams I have interacted with in the past two years from New Hampshire to Southern California.
If you have any more feedback, drop the attitude. It isn't professional.
APLP, you are coming across a little strong as well.
Books, I hear what you are saying, but again, we are not talking CQB, we are talking static defensive shooting. I am not a big fan of LTC Grossman. It looks to me like he took a short monograph with a simple thesis and has made a second career off it. Good on him. Some of his points are valid, but I think other thoughts of his are real stretches.
TR