{"id":108053,"date":"2025-03-05T02:19:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T08:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=108053"},"modified":"2025-03-05T02:19:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T08:19:01","slug":"108053","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=108053","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Leave guns to the professionals<\/a><\/p>\n

In December of 2024, in\u00a0Secret Service Secret Marksmanship,<\/a>\u00a0I took to task the unnamed Secret Service Agent who fired at least six shots at the second Trump wannabe assassin from a distance of only a few feet\u00a0and missed every shot. One would think Secret Service agents on a presidential detail would be better shots. One would apparently think wrongly. One would also think they\u2019d be better shots than the average local patrolman. In that case at least, one would also think wrongly.<\/p>\n

One of the articles of faith and narratives of anti-liberty\/gun cracktivists is the police are highly trained marksmen. We must leave guns to them because Normal Americans aren\u2019t so highly trained and will just shoot themselves, their families and worse, they might shoot criminals. The truth is quite different.<\/p>\n

Putting on the blue suit and a badge does not bestow upon police officers magical shooting abilities beyond the abilities of citizens. Only a small portion of any police force are gun guys and girls. Most police officers have only a single gun: their agency-issued handgun. The only training they get comes from their basic academy\u2014private or public\u2014and whatever refresher training their agency provides. Periodic qualification doesn\u2019t count. Unless a given officer spends the time and money in regular practice and in advanced, private training, that\u2019s all they\u2019ll ever have.<\/p>\n

For most agencies, qualification is a once-a-year burden. Ammo is expensive, and so is taking officers off the street. They have to be replaced by other cops at overtime rates. Qualifications normally fire no more than 50 rounds at never-changing stationary targets at known ranges, usually no greater than 25 yards, and commonly no greater than 15 yards. Often, strings of fire aren\u2019t timed, and only 70% proficiency is the usual standard. Officers pass if they miss only 30% of their shots.<\/p>\n

Even better, officers are allowed to reshoot the course of fire as many times as necessary to pass. Were that not true, were officers required to be 70% proficient on demand, far too many would fail, which means they\u2019d be desked until they could meet that standard, or fired, which is much too expensive.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ask how often officers clean their handguns, whether they\u2019ve been trained to do it or have the proper equipment.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind large blue city police agencies tend to have even lower standards. Their executives are politicians who have to reflect their boss\u2019s beliefs if they want to keep their jobs. That means they don\u2019t like guns, don\u2019t like cops and trust neither. They\u2019re not going to do what\u2019s necessary to ensure officers have a high degree of shooting ability. Two examples\u00a0illustrate reality:\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The New York City Police Department issues guns with 12-pound trigger pulls. Standard Glocks have 5.5 pound triggers. The heavier the trigger, the harder it is to shoot accurately. NYPD brass are worried about negligent discharges, so they issue hard to shoot guns. The results are predictable:<\/p>\n

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In 1990, NYPD officer hit potential was only 19%.<\/em>\u00a0That means\u00a081% of the rounds they fired at criminals missed.\u00a0At less than three yards, they hit only 38% of the time. From 3-7 yards, 11.5% and from 7-15 yards, only 9.4%<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some of those less than 3-yard shots were at muzzle-touching range. There are many cases on record of police officers emptying their guns at crooks at inside-a-phone-booth range\u00a0and missing every shot. Those 1990 results haven\u2019t improved with time. Heavy triggers combined with poor training have inevitable consequences. We now move to Los Angeles, setting for innumerable police dramas where sharp shooting cops never miss.<\/p>\n

In 2013 LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner, a large black man, was fired for cause and began hunting superiors he thought responsible. He was reportedly driving a pickup truck. Eight LAPD officers, including a supervisor, were covering the home of a LAPD Captain, a potential Dorner target, when a blue pickup entered the neighborhood. Those eight officers unleashed 103 rounds at the truck, which did not contain Dorner but two Hispanic women delivering newspapers.<\/p>\n

This was a classic example of \u201cme too!\u201d police shooting. One officer shoots at something and every nearby officer, having no idea why they\u2019re shooting, joins the fun.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, their marksmanship was reliably poor. They hit the truck, seven nearby homes and nine other vehicles. The\u00a0women were only wounded. They\u00a0were awarded $4.3 million, and none of the officers were disciplined.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not denigrating the police. I used to be one. They do a difficult job that requires they always be right amazingly well. But shooting is a perishable skill. Unless one learns the right techniques and regularly practices and improves, they’ll fail under stress. Many citizens spend that necessary time and money. Most cops don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

As with politicians\u00a0we get the police, and police marksmanship, we deserve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leave guns to the professionals In December of 2024, in\u00a0Secret Service Secret Marksmanship,\u00a0I took to task the unnamed Secret Service Agent who fired at least six shots at the second Trump wannabe assassin from a distance of only a few feet\u00a0and missed every shot. One would think Secret Service agents on a presidential detail would … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-schtuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108054,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108053\/revisions\/108054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}