Don't get stuck in a training rut

Firearms training should be anything but mundane. It should be task oriented and deliberate. However, sometimes we get into a training rut. When we do, it’s time to deprogram.

There is definitely training value in shooting paper targets on “square” ranges. However, switching up the scenario, even slightly, will improve the effectiveness for officers forced to use their firearm on duty.

Here are some suggestions:

Integrate force decision in regular range training
Change the venue occasionally
Vary distances, angles, shooting positions, and targets
Avoid “admin” treatment of any training activity

Integrate force decision in regular range training

If we shoot on square ranges all the time and teach template drills like drawing and firing two shots, then re-holstering, we are programming. Getting away from commonplace drills is deprogramming. When people in the education industry talk about deprogramming learning, they are talking about getting students away from learning how to learn. That is, students learn to respond in a manner that meets a “paradigmed” expectation.

Classrooms have become huge indoctrination stations that create cultural programming. If the student responds within the expectation of the curricula, they become acculturated. Students earn better grades if they “do what they are supposed to do” in the eyes of the system. For school instruction, this is a convenient social contract. If students know which template to apply for a “good grade” they are awarded good grades. On the shooting range, if we create an atmosphere of expected response, we are exposing officers to an diminished expectation of their performance.

The first step to deprogramming on the range is to integrate force decision in routine training. I purchase inexpensive paper, cardboard and 3D targets from Law Enforcement Targets (letargets.com) and integrate them with steel from Action Target. There are several IPSC Hard Cover targets, which are standard cardboard IPSC Version 6 targets with painted areas, indicating the target is behind cover or wearing armor. These cardboard targets can be stapled at an angle on the stands, or the stands can be turned, offering the officer a different angle than head-on.

I use a scenario with cardboard targets where a suspect target is partially obscured by a hostage target and hard cover. This is a target set. Using three sets of targets in a similar configuration, and a target placed right in front of the officer, the officer is allowed to start and move anywhere on the range to achieve the objective. Using pictures that are pasted on, the instructor changes the scenario by adding pictures of guns, cell phones, knives or empty hands on the targets. Law Enforcement Targets has a variety of photo targets and gun or weapon overlays that allow for quick scenario switching. An instructor can train or re-mediate an entire shift for only a few dollars worth of paper.

The targets sets are spaced far enough apart that the officer has to run to a point where he can see (and engage) the furthest target set.

The training goes like this. The officer is told to rescue the hostage and ignore the target placed in front of him until the instructor signals him. On the command or “threat”, the officer begins to engage. On the second command of “threat”, the officer has to return to the target that was originally in front of him (It just “popped up”). If the officer had not reduced the threat targets he was working on when called away to engage the additional threat, he must return to them.

This exercise can be configured in a variety of ways, but it should make the officer decide in which order to engage and slow down for accurate head or pelvic girdle shots. Surprisingly, even good shooters have trouble making a head shot on a standard target turned 22-45 degrees at close distances, standing flat footed. Officers learn to line up their shot a bit in order to avoid shooting the hostage.

Change the venue occasionally

Good firearms trainers will receive their insight from a variety of training sources, then apply them to the departmental needs, with respect to policy. It is worth the department’s investment to send range instructional staff to Gunsite, Thunder Ranch, and similar schools. These schools give instructors valuable instruction, which allows each instructor to hone their system.

Like any martial art, a single technique is not valuable without the context of the system. For example, I attended a training school once in which my friend has taught for years. We were shooting and assessing, when the instructor told us to execute a technique that made absolutely no sense. I had a question mark in my own mind, but practiced it until I could do it correctly for the class. I never said one word in the class, nor did I exhibit any non verbal behavior that would reveal my opinion about it.

Weeks later, I asked him about it. He explained. I agreed, but told him it would never work with our system. I never shared this technique with any of my classes, but I understood perfectly why he uses it. It worked in his system, a warrior that has trained hundreds of warriors. The change in venue gave me great insight about the way I was trained. For any agency, simply switching to another range can be beneficial. Our department has their own range but we used a neighboring range often, and vice versa. This change of venue adds training value simply because it allows instructors to “mix it up” a little.

Vary distances, angles, shooting positions, and targets

Using cardboard targets and blading them in their target stands, or even using rotating target stands, is low budget, but effective training. A fully committed approach would to a purpose built range like Action Target’s Modular Armored Tactical Combat House (MATCH)(https://youtu.be/en5rdzJRdtI). This is a self-contained modular shot house that allows for 360 degrees of engagement, using live ammo.

Most agencies use a range qualification that rarely goes beyond 15 yards. While this agrees statistically with firearms encounters, it is important that officers sometimes train at “extreme” handgun ranges.

The average length of the wheelbase of the latest patrol vehicles is 9-10 feet. Add the wheelbase of a suspect vehicle, plus the minimum standoff distance in a high risk stop and you have 27 feet, or 9 yards. If the suspect retreats away from the officer and continues to be a threat from the front of the suspect vehicle, and the officer creates more distance (moves towards his trunk), we have over 15 yards already. Any officer who occasionally trains at 25 or more yards has an advantage here if they are forced to use their firearm at this distance.

I shot my duty gun, a Glock 22, regularly at 50 yards. I was never an expert shot, but I could always hit a silhouette at that distance. If a training program limits the capabilities of the shooter, it is time to deprogram. By the way, any completely stock Glock can engage targets at 100 yards. That is, they will always shoot better than the shooter holding one.

Avoid “admin” treatment of any training activity

Use of force encounters are dynamic and volatile. Using a template solution for training to prevail in police encounters is setting officers up for failure. In On Combat, by Lt. Col Dave Grossman, the author has a chapter on stress inoculation, which outlines 3 principles:

Principle 1: Never “Kill” A Warrior in Training.

Principle 2: Try to Never Send a Loser Off Your Training Site.

Principle 3: As a Trainer, Never Talk Trash About Your Students.

If you have not read this book, read it. If you are an FTO, Proudly Serving, or connected to the Warrior Class in any way (including Honored Spouse of Warrior), this is a “must read”. I am constantly telling FTOs to throw this book at their trainees on their first day.

For Principle 1, the training is not just stress inoculation. Grossman talks about being hit in training with a simulator cartridge (paintball, etc), does not mean that the fight ends. It certainly should not be something trained into a person’s survival psychology. Trainers telling officers “You’re dead” when they are struck by a simulator are dead wrong. Many of us behind the badge have seen victims hit multiple times and live, often continuing the fight. I can think of a couple of times where the suspect did some incredible things. I served with someone whose suspect ran nearly a mile after several nearly point blank shots to the chest. The good news is the fact that the suspect missed the officer with all of his shots.

Conditioning an officer to quit fighting at any point in training is just plain foolish.

For Principle 2, the best example we can use is the psychological advantage of good coaching. I know a basketball coach who would finish most sessions with foul shot practice. She would not let any player leave the training session with a missed shot. If we walk away from training sessions as winners, we will walk away intact during critical incidents. There are some stories of officers with revolvers found with expended brass in their pocket after a gunfight. Although these are excellent cautionary tales for training, I have yet to see an actual documented case where this really happened.

The cautionary tale goes like this: Back when it was commonplace for officers to carry revolvers, officers would shoot the cartridges in their revolver cylinders, eject the empty brass in their hands, and place the empties in their pockets. This practice minimized the time it took to police the range of expended brass afterwords. Officers would shoot, then put the brass in their pockets.

Various sources have claimed over the years that, in post deadly encounter analysis, officers have been found deceased with expended brass in their pockets. We used to say that trainers created a “muscle memory”, where officers did things automatically because they were habituated, or trained. I always steer revolver shooters toward the “Stressfire” methods of revolver reloading, taught by Massad Ayoob (massadayoobgroup.com/).

Deprogramming means getting away from training expectations. If your training program is in a rut, mix it up.