Cops Need Gun Training & Practice
It was recently remarked that Kyle Rittenhouse was better than cops and military types handling his gun.....
Cops plainly and simply get insufficient training and practice time to be proficient in using firearms. I don't know about the military but I suspect it may be similar as everything in the military seems to take a back seat to pronouns and other woke ideas.
When I was in the California Highway Patrol Academy, cadets were well trained and those who couldn't achieve competency with their six shooters washed out and made new career choices.
Part of the training was reviewing actual police shootings from CHP files as well as those from other agencies. One thing stood out: cops miss their targets way more frequently than hitting them. Of course being in a shootout is very stressful so it becomes a challenge to avoid being the shakiest gun in the west when the shot hits the fan.
This can only be overcome by selecting the cadets that deal best with stress, increasingly difficult in modern times as the current self centered generation needs their safe spaces and non offensive situation in order to be willing to do much of anything. Then, those who can handled the stress need intensive training, which many academies actually do deliver, but that has to be followed up by lots of practice.
But with the CHP, I was allotted just 30 bullets a month and was lucky to get access to a shooting range four times a year. I suspect other agencies aren't much better, based on the continued review of new officer involved shootings during my nearly 20 years as a cop.
So the answer to getting more hits for most agencies was to increase the number of bullets in the gun. causing most agencies to switch to automatics. When the CHP forced me to carry the .40 caliber automatic, my accuracy went down but overall the increase in capacity resulted in more hits....also more misses. The answer, IMHO, would have been to increase actual practice time and bullet allotments. That means the agency needed to arrange range time, taking cops off the road more frequently.
Why was Rittenhouse more accurate than trained professionals? Simple. He had the interest, motivation and opportunity to become competent with his weapon. He may gave been lucky, too, but with shooting, luck improves with practice.
I think most police agencies need to reassess their priorities for training and practice for improved competency.
Most shootings happen at close range but "point shooting" which prepares muscle memory for close range shooting, isn't afforded a very high percentage of training and practice time. And shooting training and practice in general needs a higher priority, too. Gun safety and competence instead of safe spaces and pronouns.
Revolvers are safer and more accurate than automatic pistols and less prone to jamming. Some agencies insist all their cops use the same gun so ammo is interchangeable. I had to carry two guns, one to appease the department and my "backup" revolver in case I needed a real gun and not some out of touch administrator's idea of what my primary weapon should be.
I'm sure my opinion is in the minority among today's generation of officers. But even though I'm almost blind, I'm sure I can still put more rounds in center mass point shooting a revolver than most of today's cops and with way fewer misses. Remember, missing the suspect is one more airborne projectile that might hit an innocent bystander.
