Yes, I know the title alone has already pissed off some firearms trainers but hear me out. I am not advocating that we devote fewer hours to firearms training in the academy or in any way diminishing the role of firearms trainers. In fact, I believe we need to enhance the role of firearms trainers.
The reason I pose this question about shooting fewer live rounds is linked to a question I have been pondering, which is, “Is the poor shooting performance during deadly force encounters on the street a result of poor shooting mechanics, or the result of a potential training gap?” I believe it is a potential training gap. My belief is that most firearms instructors do a good job of teaching shooting mechanics within the box world they live in. By “box world” I mean blocked training where they are expected to teach complete firearms skills in one large block of training rather than spacing the training out over the entire academy and do a little, a lot. I also think trainers are siloed into boxes – firearms instructor, DT instructor, EVOC instructor, CEW instructor, etc. – rather than developing complete “skills and tactics instructors” who are trained in all these elements.
Back to the ‘training gap’. I think the training gap is experience in engaging an actual human being in a dynamic, moving, violent encounter who is armed with a firearm or other weapon. As realistic as firearms trainers make their training, there are still significant limitations when using live ammo. Shooting photo realistic targets is better than silhouette targets, but it is still 2 dimensional and lacks the realism of an actual deadly force encounters. Force on Force training using non-lethal training ammunition is an important part of effective training but is often only done in the context of high-fidelity scenarios, by someone other than the firearms trainers, and not as part of the progression of training to learn to fight with a gun, facilitated by firearms trainers in cooperation with trainers from other aspects of use of force and officer safety. One of the other challenges with some non-lethal training ammunition is the protective gear the role players must wear, which means the officer cannot see the subject’s face and may be unable to detect many of the subtle body movements demonstrated in real world interactions, resulting in a lack of transfer of important skills to the field.
I believe this is where the training guns from Laser Ammo Training Technologies and the SIRT pistols from Next Level Training can play a significant role in filling this gap. I am sure there are other similar technologies on the market, these are two I am aware of and I have no affiliation to either company. According to the Laser Ammo website the Gen 2 Advanced Training Laser Pistol (A.T.L.P.) PRO “features a patented Unintentional Discharge Zone Sensor Suite, which warns the instructor/shooter of any finger intrusion into the trigger guard when no shots are being fired and encourages the shooter to self-correct………. The Gen 2 PRO also has many other advanced features like: round counter, malfunctions program, shot sound and much more.” Both these and the SIRT pistols emit a laser when the trigger is puller so you know where the rounds would have hit the subject.
The use of movement is also critical to enhancing performance in the field. So, what if we incorporated movement into our firearms training right from the start so new officers became conditioned to move, draw, shoot rather than standing still and trying to out draw an assailant. The use of training pistols would allow firearms trainers to safely incorporate those movement practices while still allowing the trainees to fire their weapon and know where their shots are hitting. It would also allow firearms trainers to engage their trainees very early in their training in dynamic mini scenarios where they can interact with and engage with subjects who were not wearing protective gear. This would allow the officers to learn to attend to and process task relevant and threat relevant information and respond appropriately. It is my belief that these skills, along with shooting mechanics and weapons control practiced in live fire training could enhance performance in the field in deadly force encounters and I believe it is an experiment worth running.
The conditions for conducting effective training that results in transfer of skills and enhanced performance on the street are a critical consideration for all elements of training. Trainers need to think differently about how we design and deliver training and constantly be assessing whether what we are doing in training is resulting in improved performance in the complex, uncertain, ambiguous, and volatile situations officers are encountering on the street.
Take care.
Brian Willis
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