Conceptually we’ll say there is a governmental agency teaching a technique that addresses a barricaded suspect whose location in the room is unknown. We select one of our braver, SWAT-type souls to assume the occupation of resident room-rabbit. Like Bugs himself, he is required to dart across the room occupied by the potentially armed suspect — to draw fire. The rabbit’s friends enter the room right after the rabbit to cover him. The rabbit is supposed to — of course — shoot back while moving, if he can find the bad man while dashing across what will probably be a low-light room full of furniture.

In the food chain of life, rabbits don’t eat meat. However, lots of rabbits are, in fact, eaten. It was appropriate they picked a rabbit as the icon for this drill — and there is a strong probability the brave, but foolish room rabbit, will be eaten. Conceptually, of course. Would that make him conceptually dead? The really scary part of this story is the fact it’s true.

What? No Reboot?

Computers are great devices and indeed, serve many purposes in our lives. They switch traffic lights, help to land airplanes and save people’s lives in hospitals. But computer simulations do not represent gunfights. They may help in training — just as do the paint ball gun things — if applied properly in moderation, and with thought. As a civilian, if you carry a firearm for personal protection there will be no do-over, no recall of the projectile after it leaves the muzzle. And, if you shoot someone — right or wrong — you will not be able to reboot them, like a computer game. Oh yeah, and if you get shot, there’s no reboot for you either. Something to think about for all of us, I’d say.

Close Is Deadly

The Uniform Crime Report issued by the Department of Justice documents incidents where police officers are killed in the line of duty. As a young firearms instructor I often asked my elders why our training was based on a response to an activity that took the lives of officers. The training administered advocated that we be good shooters from seven yards and closer — because most officers were killed inside that distance. Often, I posed the question, that if I knew most officers killed were killed inside a certain range, why wouldn’t I train my officers to create more distance? It seemed simple to me then — and now.

Why not train the student to be good shots at ten to twelve yards? Why not train students to address moving threats instead of stationary threats at seven yards or less? Realizing officers must, in fact, close the ground to affect or finalize an arrest, perhaps training should address being more alert on approach. Many officers are shot with their own guns — how close would an opponent have to be to get the officers gun? What was the distance most officers were killed at? They seem to match up. Perhaps there’s a lesson here?

A civilian might ask, “Why would I care about this stuff?” Because if trained uniformed police officers are losing their guns and lives, what makes you think the same bad guy who did that to a cop would hesitate do the same to you — a lowly civilian dressed in street clothes? Maybe you should always open ground with something you don’t like. Maybe you should practice shooting and moving away from potential threats. Maybe you should protect your carry gun with good carry equipment.

It would seem logical that firearms training would change consistent to the advances in firearms technology. Many of the corner stones of training reflect common sense values even a novice should understand. Examples given by instructors could advise students the advantages of using cover to stop incoming fire, shooting around protective cover rather than over it, shooting good — not fast, and looking at the sights, to name a short few.

People who declare themselves preceptors should garner methods proven in actual use and then teach these required skills to newcomers. It’s sinful to promote techniques even the village idiot could figure out were dumb, just to be different or cool. Contemporary and futuristic concept computer target machines show boogey-men images flashing across the screen and require a student respond. As our society becomes more computer-based, many firearms students-in-training adopt a mindset of calling for “ally-ally in free!” When “killed” in training they can just reboot themselves, just like their home-based computer demon-of-darkness game. And, we all live happily ever after. Or do we? If a real gun with real bullets shoots you, the ability to reboot might be in question.