The Firearms Instructor Issue 50 13 I f someone happened to be in a position to take a poll and ask a group of vet- eran law enforcement officers (or veteran LEO firearms instructors for that matter) undoubtedly, it would be found that quite a few, maybe even the majority, refuse to believe that organized competitive shooting events help prepare an officer for a life or death struggle on the street. I for one would like to attempt to dispel this myth and try to shed some light on why competitive shoot- ing can and usually does relate directly to ‘real life’ self defense shooting skills directly related to the job of Law Enforcement. The first things that usually come to mind when survival minded officers ponder shoot- ing skills to practice on the range are; close quarters shooting, shooting on the move, clean draw, accurate first shot and, if neces- sary, an expedient reload. Asking that same group of law enforcement firearms instruc- tors what shooting skills are most important would probably give you a list of these same skills in varying order of importance. Yet some of these same instructors fail to recognize that these are the EXACT skills that most of the shooting sports practice habitu- ally. Statistics have proven time and again that lethal force confrontations for anyone, not just LEO’s, occur at an extremely rapid pace, involve frighteningly close distances and almost unanimously involve shooting and moving at the same time. These are the skills that are practiced and put into use by every major practical shooting sports entity in existence today. Now this piece isn’t being written to belittle or scoff at, the importance of basic shooting skills because one must crawl before one walks and walk before one runs however, after a grasp of basic skills, including safety first, then marksmanship, and efficient gun handling, a law enforcement officer is much better served by immersing him or herself into a practical based shooting sport than the officer would be to simply stand on a static firing line with extremely lenient times and attempt to punch one hole after another in the target. Most of the law enforcement quali- fication courses being fired in a majority of states today are based upon the PPC courses of fire designed and developed in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s. Not much else designed in that time period is still being used in Law Enforcement today, without a serious update or upgrade. All other things being equal, competition shooting is a great crucible for testing weap- ons and related equipment. If you will think about it for a moment, some of the guns and most of the ancillary gear that we see being used by our armed forces in battle today in Iraq and Afghanistan received a trial by fire in the heat of competition in a practical shoot- ing sport before being fully embraced by the armed forces. The optical sights seen today on the front lines were tested and proven in competition before being tested in the desert. How many of us would have perceived 10 by Chad Thompson