Feb 3-5, Team Leader, Thurston County, WA
March 24-26, Hostage Rescue, Spokane WA
April 14-16, Tactical Carbine, Kent WA
April 21-22, Tactical Pistol, Kent WA
May 19-21, High Risk Warrant Service, Kent WA
August 25-26, Ballistic Shield User, Kent WA
Sept. 22-26, Basic SWAT School, Spokane WA
Oct. 20-21, Ballistic Shield User, Spokane WA
Nov 3-5, Tactical Carbine/SubGun, Union Gap, WA
Nov 6 & 7, Tactical Pistol, Union Gap, WA
Dec 1-3, SWAT Team Leader, Richland, WA.

So I have been trying to institute new Pistol and Carbine qualification courses for almost a year now. Our old courses are infant easy, as such they are not befitting a Special Weapons team. I put together a crack group of instructors from the team and we spent a day developing and proof-shooting the courses. Both courses are very good and I did very little in the process of putting them together. The guys came up with the stages, the times, and the passing score. Both courses will test your skill at arms, no doubt about it.

Now to the reason for this blog. The courses were developed by the best shooters on my team. They are aggressive, but passable by every single officer on the team. Some of those officers have some work to do, from alot of work to just a little work. All of us will have to work hard at TRAINING to continue to pass these qualification courses. With all that said I am astonished at just how much push back I am getting from this. I would never shy away from any challenge presented to me. If I really sucked with my pistol and/or carbine, I would not spend one minute crying about it, I would fix it. As fighting men we do not get to pick the time and circumstances of our fight, it just happens. How can any SWAT team member say that any gun related course is too hard?

I suppose if the pistol course was only passable by Robert Vogel we might have to look at it again. If my team was only given one bullet per man and one minute a month to train, maybe we should take that into conderation as well. Maybe. Rather than wax poetic with Sheepdog analogies or try to scare you with sentences about “What if your family was held hostage”, how about we all just agree that this is your J-O-B! Plenty of people have tried to list the order of importance for SWAT skills; Tactics (encompasses everything from knowledge, to decision making, to stress performance), Guns, Physical Fitness. There is no order, they all work in harmony to produce a successful outcome. Lose one, the rest may fall down. I will say that being an extremely competent shooter is a Must-Have skill. By the time you reach that level, you will have touched your guns many thousands of times, you will have experienced a variety of shooting positions, gun failures, and stress shoots so that when the day comes your response to the shooting will be perfect. Thay may require personal time and personal expense in the form of bullets.  

Often times guys have a fantasy about their gunfight. Mine always includes a catastrophic failure of my carbine, which means I get stuck with my pistol. By the time this has occurred, I am way behind the curve. So as I am drawing my pistol and my hands just start to come together, I get hit in the right hand. Well suck. I go WHO to stay in the fight and get a few rounds off, unfortunately my pistol decides to shit and provides a Type 8 malfunction. I clear it WHO, and then drain the gun, causing a WHO speed reload. Gun is back hot and I eventually win the fight without having to switch to Tomahawk. That Crap storm is what I’m training for, it’s why a Special WEAPONS team needs to be able to fight with guns very well. It is why you should have a very tough set of standards for your team.