In the April issue, I reviewed Day 1 of our close-quarters basic (CQB) pistol class. To recap: We work through the core shooting skills basics, emphasizing safe weapon handling and presentation, body position, grip, sight and trigger control. Accurate aimed fire being the goal, the DOT target exercise is the final building block of the day.
I was taught that we move through learning phases to achieve success. The first is unconscious incompetence: We don’t know what we don’t know. The second is conscious incompetence: We know that we don’t know. The third is conscious competence: If we think about it, we know it and can do it at some level of ability. Finally, we achieve unconscious competence: No need to think about why or how. Do it and do it well.
Day two of the class aims to develop this final phase, unconscious competence. The task is preparing an officer for a deadly force event, where success means life. Remember: The basics are the key. Advanced training is simply the basics done well—faster, with the focus on the threat, not the tools. There’s no magic, only correct training practiced regularly. So what are the skills we look to incorporate?
What We Seek
First, it’s vital for officers to understand the dynamics of the fight. Mindset, time framing, and the physical effects of stress are reviewed. Officers must understand how their body responds to high-stress events. Adrenaline is released along with other hormones that kick the heart rate into a hammering of the chest. Breath that is ordinarily slow and deep suddenly becomes a shallow panting with a lower oxygen level. Fine finger movement becomes blocky and clumsy: Try to thread a needle in an emergency. Tunnel vision reduces awareness of surroundings and additional threats. All of this and more is examined as a caution to the officers that what they feel and how they respond in a classroom is far different from the fight. Our job, therefore, is to increase ability and reduce the stress effects.
We begin Day 2 range work with dry fire to reintroduce the officer to the trigger: Straight back press, with no crush at the end. I include dry fire in all that I do as a shooter because it significantly improves accuracy. Dry fire is followed with a run at the DOTS. Has the shooter retained the previous day’s lesson? At this point of instruction, speed is a negative, smooth a positive. Finding the balance will be the officer’s ongoing task.
Next comes the “chase the bullet” drill. The shooter fires one round and then shoots at the same bullet hole. This is a check on the basics and provides good feedback. If the shooter looks at the target instead of the sights, he will likely not succeed. You won’t see bullet holes in the fight. Except in very close encounters, sights improve performance greatly.
Now that we have all students shooting accurately, we return to the classroom to discuss ballistics and the effects of shot placement. A standard silhouette target is used to illustrate that a “qualifying” hit can fall anywhere within a large circle. If all you fight is paper targets, this is acceptable. But when a determined criminal is attempting to murder you, only rounds that strike vital areas of the body will put a fast end to the attack.
We discuss bullet types and caliber. I’m often asked, what’s the best caliber handgun for police use? The bottom line: Bullet placement is more important than bullet size. My belief is that given the upgraded duty type ammunition available today, a 9 mm handgun in capable hands is as good as a .40, which is as good as a .45. Carry the caliber pistol you shoot best with.
After illustrating the importance of shot placement, we then shrink the accepted impact area to the size of a playing card and we move back to live fire.
Every Shot as Your Only
A series of exercises follow where single, double, triple rounds are fired at distances from 4–7 yards. The distances reflect where we spend so much of our time in contact on the street.
We train to defeat the threat with as many rounds as are needed. The “fire two rounds and assess” approach is outmoded today because criminals increasingly use of body armor. The question Henk Iverson asks each class: “How many rounds do you get to fire in the fight?” Some say whatever your pistol or revolver holds. Iverson says they may be correct but then again, you may only get one shot to save your life or that of another. Plus, he says, ammunition, magazines, weapons and shooters all fail.
Note: We may only have a moment’s time to observe the threat and fire a single round, so you can’t afford to throw away shots. This requires us to slow down at high speed. One of the most important lessons I learned regarding this thinking came from Mike Plaxco, one of the finest all-around shooters I’ve competed against. He said to me, “Your first shot must be your best shot, and every shot must be your first shot.” It’s not the number of rounds you carry. Magazine capacity isn’t the answer, either. Only solid hits count.
Getting Off the Line
Next is the most under-trained skill of the fight: getting off the line of force. For decades of police firearms training, officers have stood in shooting booths. Why do we train that way? To keep the line safe by keeping the officers in place. The problem is that this isn’t reality. We don’t fight in phone booths. Movement is life and fast lateral movement forces the attacker to have to observe where you moved to, orient himself to that change of position, make a decision and act. He has lost the time element and you have gained it. Finally, we discuss Boyd’s OODA Loop and the advantage we gain from employing time/action related tactics.
Next we have the officers begin movement off the line by simply turning their toes in the direction to move and walk. It’s simple: No cross stepping or bunny hopping. No guns at first: Just step off the line of force so you are no longer standing in front of the threat.
Next we step off and then turn to face the threat from the new angle. Then we do it dry, and finally with live fire. We don’t draw until turning into the target, acknowledging that there are certain safety measures we must employ in training. The foundation concept is that if you’re not shooting, you’re moving. That means no stationary reloads or clearances. Get your finger off the trigger, in the bent C position and move. The bottom line: Move fast, delivering accurate fire on demand.
Verbal Commands
When should verbal commands be used and what words should be used? The vast majority of police actions have included verbal commands and warnings, but not all. The officer must evaluate the identity of the “offender” to avoid using deadly force simply because the person was holding a gun. The person with the gun may be another police officer, a citizen homeowner or store owner acting within the law to protect himself. Conversely, police may immediately recognize a criminal or terrorist threat that demands action, not words.
The use of profanity is strongly discouraged. We use the simple statement: “Police. Do not move!” This identifies us as police officers and provides an unambiguous command. Once again, we stress that officers not stand in front of the threat. Verbal commands may go unheeded, and action defeats reaction, so move! Force the offender to react to your actions.
We practice reloading while moving and under stress. I loan open-top mag pouches to officers to train with. We’ve made friction-tight mag pouches, such as the Bianchi Triple Threat and the new Safariland No. 79 Slimline series a standard carry requirement on my department. We’ve used such pouches without loss of a magazine for more than 20 years. A flap mag pouch is slow to reload from, often nothing more than an ammo truck. We need a reloading system, not a storage device. Open-top pouches allow lighting fast mag access and are, at the same time, secure. Note: Only use pouches designed as “open top.” Don’t remove flaps from pouches to convert them to open top because you will remove the means to hold the mags in place.
Next comes malfunction clearance. I begin by asking, how many officers will raise their hand when faced with a handgun malfunction? The officers laugh. They figure a number of their fellow officers might do so. I ask again, who’s coming to clear your pistol in a fight on the street? This exposes another deadly vestige of range training that is simply unacceptable.
So we use dummy rounds and require officers to move through the slap- rack-back-to-threat exercise that should be second nature to any semi-auto shooter. Yes, there are other clearances for a double feeds and so forth that must be learned, but this is the most basic and fastest to do.
Final Word
By end of Day 2, officers are moving, communicating, shooting and scanning for additional threats. Movement keeps officers from becoming stationary targets. Verbal commands force them to breath. Scanning breaks their tunnel vision. All these skills must be learned, repeated and tested.
All of this is finally incorporated into a final live-fire exam at the end of the class. Most are capable of shooting accurately within the required time frame. The difficulty arises from operating under the stress of standing alone in front of your peers and performing on demand. Shots are off target as breathing has stopped and trigger control has gone out the window. Mag changes are fumbled, malfunction clearances forgotten and all under far less stress than a real fight.
When we finish, the most repeated question from officers is, “Why were we not trained like this from day one?” Our answer: You should have been, and it’s up to us, as trainers, to make that change.
The above CQB pistol course works well for us as a starting point. Elements such as use of cover, one-hand and low-light operations, wounded and down exercises and, finally, force-on-force scenarios with paint marker rounds are used later to build on these basics. What we instruct is what’s required in our training for officer to be able to effectively respond to the most important aspect of our profession: the lawful protection of life.
There are many fine instructors nationwide. No one person or group knows it all, and there are no secrets to gun fighting. An ancient proverb says, “When the student is ready, the teacher will be there.” So true. The time to start is now.