The Firearms Instructor Issue 50 25 is not a “right” for every officer. They have to earn that right by demonstrating that they are capable. You might have to deny an officer the opportunity to go through the live portion of the training if he or she is not ready. This might be uncomfortable because you will be in effect calling out a student, but it is your duty as an instructor to ensure your students will be working in a safe training environment. Be careful though not to automatically exclude some- one just because they made a couple of mistakes. If they understand what they did and show a willingness and ability to cor- rect their mistakes, consider allowing them to go through the entire training. You will find that once the first live round is fired, the seriousness and focus of most officers increases exponentially. When you go live, again keep your evolu- tion simple. The stress of live fire alone will make the training difficult enough. Your instructors must be able to anticipate what the officers might do and not just what they should do. This way they are ready to step in and keep the evolution safe. I would suggest that you keep the evolution pretty much the same as you did when they were doing it dry and with Simunitions. Let the officers know that what they did during the first evolutions is what they will be doing when they go live. The only difference is that they will be doing it with real ammu- nition. You will see apprehension in some officers, but as they progress in the train- ing, their confidence and skill improves! The naysayers will argue that this train- ing is too unsafe; that the risk of injury or death outweighs the benefit of the training. Some will say that this same training can be more safely accomplished with only Simunition or marking cartridges rather than live ammunition. After all, it is only training. My argument is that officers work in a 360 degree environment and very often have their weapons out. Is it that far out to think that they will never fire their weapons in environments where the gunfire only happens to their direct left or right? Might they not have other officers engaging a threat behind them or adjacent to them? If so, shouldn’t we be training them to do this safely? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t take this level of training lightly. Simunitions has its place in training and is extremely effective. However, after having used these tools for a number of years many officers have grown complacent or nonchalant with it and real- ize that they won’t truly get hurt during this training; embarrassed yes, but hurt,