A recent study of 149 officer involved shootings at the Dallas Police Department reveals a major shortcoming in the training officers receive in the use of their firearms. Despite annual or semi-annual qualification tests officers are completely missing their targets in real life nearly 50% of the time. You can read a synopsis of the study here.
Two of the biggest takeaways from this study for church safety ministries and how they train:
Simply Shooting a Firearms Qualification Course Doesn’t Mean Anything
One of the issues cited in the study is the lack of training for shooting in a dynamic environment. Often qualification shoots are done statically, in ideal conditions, and with a “warm-up”. This is not realistic! Qualification courses are good to have a paper trail outlining your safety team members’ ability to safely handle a weapon and generally put rounds in the right direction, but they do not measure their competency with a weapon or their capability in a gunfight.
Training needs to incorporate more dynamics; decision making, movement, foreground/backstop concerns, angles, lighting. If you’re not training for these possibilities you’re setting your team up for failure. Train and test for competency, not just qualification. For a good example of how to test competency read Firearms Qualifications for Safety Teams.
It’s Very Difficult to Operate Under Stress Without Stress Innoculation
This specific point is not addressed in the Force Science article but it is most definitely a factor that safety ministries need to consider. If officers, who are EXTREMELY used to operating, communicating, and making decisions under stress are missing the target completely in 50% of shootings, how do you think your safety team members, who likely are not stress innoculated, will do? This further highlights the need for live scenario training and force on force training (preferably with marking rounds).
Simulated stress is the closed we can get to actual stress. This is only accomplished by forcing people into uncomfortable training environments/situations and allowing them to act, make mistakes, learn from them, and make corrections. This is also a major motivating factor behind Zero 5’s GiveSendGo campaign to raise money for force on force equipment.
Force on force training is some of the best training available to law enforcement and military. Unfortunately, it’s hard to come by and very expensive in the civilian world, and almost nobody is conducting it with a church safety focus. Zero 5 instructors have jumped through the hoops to be able to offer the training. We just don’t have the funding for the equipment yet.
If you’d like to support us in this endeavor please visit the link below.
PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.
Mike
