This is a great information that all who carry a firearm should read, and use to reassess their training priorities.

“Realistic, Relevant & Practical” are the hallmarks of our training methodology, however I very commonly see the opposite in a lot of training programs I have attended. I.E. I often see videos and firsthand accounts of reload drills after reload drill and better yet – week hand only reloads…yet the task has such a miniscule representation in armed incident statistics. The issue is over representing a task in training or particularly training without the appropriate gear, with the largest culprit being holsters. Drawing your weapon is likely to be the most vital task you could train, yet many come to the range with a “range holster” which different from their duty holster as it is easier or faster to draw from and/or they have their spare magazines centerline on their waist in a competition style setup.

Focus your training on the challenges you will most likely be faced with based on your typical and anticipated task, threat and environment.

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Below are the statistics showing what skills privately armed citizens were required to perform in real life events over a 5 year period: (note: these are not particular to any category, but simply citizen-involved-shootings – link to source is below)

• Retrieve from Storage (handgun)                   32%
• Move safely from place to place at ready     22%
• Draw to shoot                                                   20%
• Challenge from ready                                      15%
• Intervene in another’s situation                      15%
• Draw to challenge                                            12%
• Engage from ready (handgun)                        12%
• Hold at gunpoint until police arrive                12%
• Retrieve from Storage (unknown)                  10%
• Shoot with non-threats downrange                10%
• Retrieve from Storage (rifle)                            0%
• Reload                                                                0%

Protective Firearms Training

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Specific to protective services – I recently had a discussion with an individual who attended a firearms course with a well known security provider/training provider. This outfit is highly regarded, and while they certainly know how to shoot, move and communicate…the ‘tactics’ were lacking as they relate to private protective services in CONUS+. The instructors are mostly former military from special operations units, high-threat contractors, etc. and apparently they have not dropped their mindset from those applications, to the detriment of their student base who are intending on working here, in CONUS+ in a private security role.

In the course mentioned above, the students were instructed and ran drills on how to engage with their firearm…and then evac with their principal. Yet were not informed that they were being taught how to become criminals.

Most alarmingly, in our course our students are surprised in how we stress prior incident planning and management, especially when solo, as if you are involved in a shooting in CONUS+ you are most certainly NOT going to evac with your principal unless you are trying to commit a crime. This is painfully obvious yet apparently this is overlooked by even some of the good training providers out there. If you are involved in any shooting, you are to remain at the scene until law enforcement arrives – if you were taught otherwise, you learned how to become a criminal. Proper planning to evac a principal from any threat, whether part of a team or solo, is vital along with the considerations that those involved may not be able to evac with the principal.

Remember, your training should be able to withstand being asking “Why?” Read more: 5 Important Training Considerations. Choose wisely – Realistic, Relevant and Valuable…if you are not relevant, what are you? Yep – IRRELEVANT.

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What skills should we train and practice?