Be a SWAT/Tier One Operator in Just One Day!

P.T. Barnum said it best, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

This article is for the interested but unknowing firearms student who’s seeking training. This is a good person, might be someone who just wants to try something new, might be someone who wants to learn how to protect their loved ones or possibly go into a career in law enforcement. I hope to shed some light on the troublesome topic that can turn an eager new student away from firearms for good, or even worse, cause a loss of life.

When a school tells you that in a beginning level class you’ll be doing live fire room entries in just 4 hours with others as equally inexperienced, you might want to think twice. When a beginning level class, or any class for that matter, is conducting live fire ‘peel back’ spinning rifle drills shooting over, around and from behind you, it should set off warning bells, sirens and klaxons among those with any common sense. When students are allowed to cavalierly and in a completely unsupervised manner, handle weapons throughout the day while behind the line, loading and unloading and manipulating weapons with the muzzles pointed at others… leave immediately!

I was the primary firearms/tactics instructor for the Metro’s ‘New Guy School’ for over 15 years. New Officers into the Division underwent extensive and extremely intensive firearms and tactics training prior to any deployment as a Metro Officer, and no such unsafe drills were ever conducted for very good reason. Even then we did not perform the dangerous drills that I alluded to in the previous paragraph. By the time an Officer finally gains admittance into SWAT and begins moving around others within a live fire format, he has hundreds upon hundreds of hours of intensive training behind him and even then there are multiple instructors monitoring him. These were by no means beginner or inexperienced students conducting such evolutions simply for the ‘thrill and giggle’ factor, which I have seen promised by some “instructors” as of late.

Simply because an “instructor” conducts a drill does not denote that particular drill is in any way, shape or form SAFE! The following are issues which can arise from such folly: Beginning students are not familiar with safety issues relative to the finger placed on the trigger when it shouldn’t be; they are totally unfamiliar with the control surfaces such as the selector switch, safeties, de-cocking levers, magazine releases etc.; they are not experienced when reloading, clearing malfunctions or moving with live weapons; they are unsure of their footing and the direction of the muzzle. The “instructors” who would dare run beginning students through these types of drills are woefully inexperienced, grossly unsafe, and they are an inherent danger to themselves and students around them. You do not want to partake in a school which is practicing rolling, shooting over, or around and from behind others! You can get away with unsafe practices in ping pong, badminton and maybe even horse shoes, but not with live weapons capable of inflicting death or grievous bodily, life altering injuries.

A sustained gunshot wound, whether intentional or unintentional, bears the exact same physical, psychological and mechanical consequences. A complete lack of extensive real world experience on the part of an instructor often leads to inherently dangerous drills conducted simply for the sake of spin, marketing and masking the very inexperience of that instructor. From 40 years of experience behind the gun I am acutely aware of what has occurred and what will occur in the future regarding grossly unsafe range practices. You are placing yourself, family and friends in extreme peril when participating in such foolish practices.

Should you be injured you will most likely be out of luck when it comes to adequate compensation. The instructor could never legally substantiate such dangerous practices in the courts. Insurance companies would never represent an unsafe instructor and their policies do not cover inherently dangerous evolutions. This falls under the ‘gross negligence’ clause wherein someone should have known and been aware of the inevitable consequence of fundamentally unsafe, dangerous range practices. He would be torn to shreds within the first few minutes on the stand or within a depositional format.

Beginners simply don’t have enough experience to know just how unsafe improper training by unqualified individuals can be, and the degree of peril to which they place themselves in. You simply don’t know what you don’t know.

I have lost count of all the instructor development classes that I have conducted. I have worked on court cases dealing with firearms safety issues. I am very much aware of instructors who have shot students, shot other instructors, as well as students who have shot other students when classes were not conducted properly. It is for these and many other reasons that I take great exception to those who claim that they can turn you into a SWAT or Tier One Operator in just a single day, a single class or within a single year. It’s all smoke and mirrors.

We have a 27 year, absolutely flawless firearms safety record for a reason. LAPD SWAT since 1968 has had a flawless firearms safety record for a reason. We employ common sense and real world experience when we conduct our classes and we don’t now nor have we ever, issue outrageous claims that could not be substantiated.

Be safe, employ common sense and seriously question unsafe range practices. Should you find yourself in such a setting, depart immediately and don’t look back. To do otherwise only hazards yourself and those around you.