From: "Brian Toller", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In happier days the guy who jointly ran our practical
section used to do a great deal of training police and
security in other countries and as a result we used to
shoot quite a lot of the qualification excersises of
various sections of American law enforcement.
Although some of them were unbelievably easy quite a
few range from difficult to bloody nigh impossible. The
strange point being that it was often those departments
that you would think had less need for firearms that
had the more vigourous standards.
I'm sure Steve will put me right but from memory I
think the most difficult was that required by the Sky
Marshalls although I can't remember the course.
In the preference of MP5's against pistols aren't we
just further down the road of "The more bulletts the
better". Which initially comes from the "They've got'em
so we want'em" attitude. It just means that they can
miss a lot more. I would suggest that the standards
required of AFO's should be on an escalating scale with
pay increments attached to each level and a requirement
that an officer could only remain at a level for a set
time before at least attempting to progress. It seem
that a bit of carrot and stick may be the only way to
get them up to higher standards. Maybe we should be
sending more of our lot over to the States to train
and qualify and then come back and pass on their
training to others.
Way back when I first took a course in practical the
guy was getting quizzed by several students as to the
various benefits of this or that new bolt on goody and
told the class that the guy to worry about was the one
with the knackered old 1911 in a beat up holster
because he spent all his money on ammo and practice.
Excepting national squads with more time and money than I
ever had access to he wasn't far wrong.
There's only one thing better than practice and thats
more practice.
Brian T
--
One thing they do in the States is have competitions between
police marksmen, that would be a good idea although I
won't hold my breath.
The Sky Marshalls course of fire is about the hardest I
have come across. I can't remember it exactly but the
time limits were things like draw and engage a target
at 7 yards in 2 seconds, not easy from an issue holster
with a stock SIG-Sauer P228. And that was one of the
easier parts of it. The target if I recall correctly
was the FBI Q target, which is a lot smaller than an
IPSC target.
Basically it called for extreme accuracy in very
tight time limits, to simulate the situation on board
an aircraft.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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