You train hard, perfect your skills and develop new ones.  You’re a modern day warrior poet, a gunfighter.  Always remember:

Is not life a fleeting existence in the present?
A split second separate the past from present,
The present from the future, now and unknown.
The past gone, the present now, future unknown.

Life is fleeting, and so are your skill at arms.  Without regular maintenance, how long until your hard-fought skills begin to atrophy?  Which skills will degrade first?

A Navy study on the degradation of skills of their Aviation Anti-Submarine Operators showed that the skills and knowledge had “degraded significantly” when tested after 29 days.  Interestingly, both the factual and computational portions of the test showed similar levels of atrophy while the classification portion of the test showed no loss.  Obviously, I’m not comparing being a pistolero to being a Navy geek but I’ve personally experienced a similar phenomenon.  If I’ve gone a month or more without training I can still classify different parts of the pistols and discuss fluently the fundamentals of pistol marksmanship.  The loss occurs on the line when I’m engaging “threats.”  Both accuracy and speed suffer from the time away from the range.

The Army conducted a similar study on Nurses in an attempt to understand the retention of both Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS).  Following certification in both skills, the nurses in the study (133 nurses assigned to Fort Sam Houston) were retested 3, 6, 9, or 12 months later.  The findings show that while theoretical knowledge of both BLS and ACLS skills remained strong, performance skills suffered greatly.  The basic skills were retained at a higher rate and tended to atrophy at a slower rate.  63% of nurses retained BLS skills after 3 month and 58% after 12 months.  Only 30% of nurses passes ALCS after 3 months with just 14% after 12 months.  My takeaway is that your basic firearms skills will degrade more slowly than your advanced skills.  My guess is we tend to practice our basic skills more often.  Basic skills tend to be easier to train on at most ranges.  Many ranges specifically prohibit skills needed to maintain advanced weapons proficiency.  Drawing, rapid fire and shooting while moving can be difficult to train on because of range constraints.  The result is that we’re all better trained on basics than advanced skills.

There has also been several studies that discuss the general decline of “skilled work” in our industrialized and computerized society.  The craftsmen and artisans of 50 years ago are being replaced by technology, lasers, and robots.  Is it possible that it’s becoming more difficult to develop true skills in our modern society?  Not necessarily apropos for the current discussion, but still  fodder for discussion around the squad or team room.

So how do we develop a firearms training program that will maintain the highest level of proficiency?  It will obviously have to represent a realistic commitment.  We can’t spend all our time working to be good at our job.  Whether we like it or not, we actually have to leave the range from time to time in order to do our job.

Just like in other areas of our life, we have to prioritize and focus our efforts on our needs even at the expense of our wants. There’s a natural tendency to work on things that we like to do, and we tend to have better skills at the things we work on (because we like them).

We won’t be assaulted at the time or place, or in the manner of, our choosing.  In order to best prepare a solid foundation of basic skills needs to be developed.  Built on this foundation will be the advanced skills necessary to dominate and survive a violent encounter.  Shooting while moving, shooting from barricades, shooting at moving targets, shooting “disadvantaged” (i.e. shooting after being hit by your attacker), and shooting from alternate positions should all be the focus of your program.  The advanced skills will atrophy at a faster rate than basic skills.  To counter this trend, spend minimal time working on stationary targets from static positions.

Don’t train on what you want.  Train on what you need.  Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive firearms training available anywhere.  It was built on the vast personal combat experience of some of the most elite special operators in the country.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

There’s a cost to any business. For professional law enforcement officers, military personnel, or Federal agents the cost is wear on tear their body from the years of cumulative stress. There is a relatively recent hypothesis that asserts that there is physiological risk associated with exposure to psychosocial stressors over time. In lay speak, folks in high stress jobs will suffer physical ailments because of the pressures of the job.

The term for the chronic exposure to stress and its effect on the body is referred to as the allostatic load. This term was coined by McEwan and Stellar in their 1993 text entitled “Health Psychology” published by McGraw-Hill. Allostasis could be literally defined as “maintaining stability through change.” From an NIA Exploratory Workshop on Allostatic Load in 2007:

“Allostatic load refers to the cumulative biological wear and tear that can result from excessive cycles of response (i.e. too frequent and/or of inappropriate duration or scope) in these systems as they seek to maintain allostasis in the face of environmental challenge [someone assaulting you].  According to the theory, as these systems become taxed and dysregulated, they begin to exhibit imbalances in the primary neural mediators of the stress response…”

Stressful situations can limit brain functions to basic levels, the much discussed “fight or flight” response.  Allostatic load is impacted by repeated cycles of this response.  Over time the allostatic load can cause changes in the physiological response to stressors.  The police officer who once responded within a moral and ethical framework may begin responding with inappropriately high levels of anxiety and aggression.

Obviously, the implications for the theory is that there are long-term health consequences to having a job with an unusually high allostatic load. The stress of the job can kill you. It’s worth understanding the threat and how to mitigate it for the same reasons you practice with firearms. From a 2005 UCLA study:

“The body’s perception of stress leads to a significant load upon physiological regulation including circadian regulation, sleep and psycho neuroendocrine-immune [link between psychological factors and the nervous and immune systems] interaction.”

Besides a physical toll, there is a psychological toll to this phenomenon as well.  It is well documented phenomenon that acute stressors can cause PTSD in soldiers, law enforcement, or other victims of traumatic events.  The frontal executive areas of the brain are responsible for planning, decision making, and judgement.  This area is affected by the experiences that pass through it.  The frontal areas of the brain are constantly “tuned” by experience.  When two cells fire together, they are wired together.

In a recent FBI study entitled Brain Functioning as the Ground for Spiritual Experiences and Ethical Behavior a veteran law enforcement officer commented “Peace officers are exposed to the worst that life has to offer.  They see the denizens of society at their very worst – when they have just been victimized or when they have just victimized someone else.  Peace officers see the perpetrators of evil and the results of their evil deeds.  The constant contact with evil is corrosive, and those effects are cumulative.”

The author (Dr. Fred Travis) further writes that “Experiences change the brain.  This is inevitable.  The violence law enforcement officers see becomes part of the functioning or their brains and bodies.  Neural imaging assessed activation of the areas of the brain that stop wrong behavior, called orbitofrontal cortex, after individuals…” witness or experience violent, traumatic events.

Allostatic load can reduce connections with frontal executive areas of the brain and amplify stimulus-response circuits.  These changes, or structural remodeling, can impact memory and emotions and may increase anxiety and aggression.  Victims of these changes may become distant from spouses, children, or other friends because they are emotionally incapable of interacting or feel a sense of detachment.  Neural imaging of patients who experience high allostatic load reveal lesions on the frontal executive areas.  The brain is intact, but the brain matter is no longer involved in planning and decision making.

The impact on job performance can be devastating.  Extreme errors in judgement, non-ethical or immoral decision making, and dereliction of responsibilities can all result from years of high stress and allostatic overload.

How then, do we combat allostatic load?   There are, of course, many prescription drugs available that can help mitigate the effects of allostatic load.  Somewhat surprising, at least to me, is another non-pharmaceutical option.  The solution may well be spirituality.  Spirituality, loosely defined as a sense of wholeness, has been shown to engage the entire frontal executive area of the brain.

Spirituality can obviously be religious.  The research conducted by Dr. Travis, however, is more general.  Any experiences that are universal in nature, or ones that transcend our own sense of time, space, or individual body can be spiritual.  The effects of spirituality on the brain are widespread activation and higher brainwave coherence.  The measure of this phenomenon is known as Brain Integration Scale (BIS).

People who regularly practice spirituality have a correspondingly higher BIS.  They become more self-reliant, self-sufficient, independent, and take responsibility for their lives and performance.  BIS studies have shown a positive correlation between spirituality and emotional stability and moral reasoning, while showing a negative correlation with anxiety.  BIS is increased with regular spiritual experiences.

For professional soldiers and police, the conclusions are fairly straightforward.  Each of you will react differently to the stress of your jobs.  Over time, the cumulative stress may negatively impact your physical and/or psychological health.  An otherwise good, moral officer will make immoral choices and could become extremely anxious or aggressive.

For me, there is a certain elegance to the allostatic load theory.  Becoming involved in your local church and establishing a healthy relationship with God will help you reach your potential as a husband, a father, and law enforcement professional.  This foundational relationship will help you manage allostatic load and facilitate success both at home and at work.  It provides balance to your life and will allow you to formulate the best decisions, even when under extreme stress.

Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive firearms training available anywhere.  It was built on the vast personal combat experience of some of the most elite special operators in the country.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

Anytime you’re in a fight, particularly a gunfight, halting your adversary is the goal.  When you’re in a fight, you just want out of the fight.  You can disengage, run, or neutralize your attacker.   Or you can be killed.

Once your attacker has commenced his assault, stopping him becomes your life’s work.   The firearm most likely available to you will be your handgun.  If you are aware of the impending attack, you’ll most certainly arm yourself with a long gun.  Since most attackers won’t afford you that opportunity, proficiency with your pistol remains paramount to your survival.  Because of the array of pistol manufacturers, models, and calibers available, there is inevitably a debate about which combination is “best.”  I am frequently asked to give my opinion on caliber selection.  Even more than training, or tactics, or weapons selection.  Everyone loves talking about ballistics.  The problem is that most of us are knuckle-draggers and we only know two things about ballistics…jack and shit.

We get on the internet and google and read and talk to our buddies who seem to know a lot about guns.  I’m no different.  I’ve been amassing articles and studies about ballistics for as long as I can remember.  This is my attempt to solve the “caliber riddle.”

First off, lets talk about knock-down power.  Simply put, it doesn’t exist.  The force a bullet will impact your adversary is equal to (or less than) the recoil you felt when you fired the round.  It’s physics.  It isn’t debatable.  If you fired a bullet capable of knocking someone to the ground, you would likewise be knocked to the ground when you triggered it.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  Sound familiar?  It’s Newton’s Law of Motion.  I may be dumb but that guy was smart so you should pay attention.

Whats confuses the issue is that many people tend to fall down when they’ve been shot.  It isn’t caused by the projectile, they do it for all sorts of other reasons.  The belief that they are more seriously injured than they are, the “training” received by years of movies and television, or simply a desire to quit fighting all contribute.  Some people fall down when shot, some people don’t.  Since you can’t control it, you can’t count on it to happen during a fight.

Ok, so knock-down power can’t be achieved.  How do I stop my adversary?

The impact of bullets on the human body has four factors which contribute to how quickly an attacker is stopped.  The first factor is Penetration and is measured by the distance the projectile travels into the target.  The damage caused by penetration is directly related to the tissue disrupted or destroyed by the bullet passage.  The second factor is the Permanent Cavity and is measured by the volume of space once occupied by tissue that is now destroyed by the passage of the projectile.  This is the hole left in the guy after you shoot him.  The next factor is the Temporary Cavity and is measured by the amount of expansion or stretching of tissue due to the transfer of kinetic energy from the projectile.  The final wound factor is Fragmentation which are pieces of the projectile which separate and are propelled through the body.  Fragmentation may not occur in every bullet wound, and should be considered a secondary effect.  In fact, fragmentation in pistol rounds is extremely limited (typically less than one centimeter) and should not be heavily considered during bullet selection.

In order to quickly halt an adversary, the central nervous system must be severely damaged or destroyed.  For the anatomically challenged, check out the picture.

Notice the heart isn’t shown.  Shooting someone in the heart causes blood loss, perhaps major blood loss.  This will leave your attacker with approximately 15 seconds of full voluntary function before being incapacitated.  Fifteen seconds is a long time to have someone shooting at you.

In order to achieve fight stopping results, the brain or upper spinal cord must be severely damaged or destroyed.  This type of accuracy is clearly a function of training more than bullet selection.  The shot placement discussion occurs frequently, but it can’t be overstated how important marksmanship is to surviving a gunfight.

Bullet selection is critically important also.  Even assuming the accuracy is there, the bullet must penetrate enough into the target to pass through the central nervous system in order to achieve fight stopping results.  Because of this specific requirement, penetration is the most important factor in bullet selection.

Over-penetration gets talked about frequently in the law enforcement and self defense communities.  It’s true that a round can pass through the intended target and hurt a bystander.  It’s also true, and more likely, that a round will completely miss the intended target and hurt a bystander.  Misses are extremely common during violent assaults.  The risk of over-penetration should be carefully weighed against survival.  Over penetration might occur and a bystander could be injured, but a weak round will never quickly incapacitate an attacker.  When selecting a round for defensive purposes, a minimum of 12 inches of penetration is desired.  Anything less would be considered a poor choice.  More than 18 inches of penetration is probably unnecessary, but your situation should be carefully considered.  The round I select for my situation may be different than what is needed to meet your specific requirements.

Permanent cavity is the next most critical consideration when selecting a pistol caliber, or specific bullet.  The permanent cavity is the volume of destruction as the bullet passes through the target.  In this case, bigger is better.  Assuming an equal amount of penetration, a larger round will create a larger permanent cavity and will cause more damage.  Exactly how much “better” a larger projectile performs is extremely difficult to determine, and I won’t attempt to quantify it.

Temporary cavity is a much-hyped and misunderstood factor of projectile wounds.  Pistol rounds are underpowered by nature and relatively slow moving.  The latest research  on temporary cavity is that the tissue damage could be as small as one tenth of the speed of the projectile.  For the purposes of pistol gunfighting, it simply isn’t a factor.  If someone is trying to tell you how superior a particular round performs because of its “kinetic energy transfer” or temporary wound channel, you’re being sold a line of crap.

Fragmentation simply isn’t a factor for handgun rounds.  Pistol rounds move too slowly to achieve consistent fragmentation.  Again, since you can’t control it,  don’t count on it.  Fragmentation in a pistol fight is a non-issue.

The final characteristic I want to discuss is the idea of expansion.  Most of us have some experience with hollow-point ammunition.  The round is specifically designed to expand on impact to inflict greater damage to the target.  Assuming that 12 inches of penetration is achieved, an expanding bullet has lots of merit.  The problem is that hollow point ammunition has inconsistent performance.  When hollow point rounds impact bone, glass, or even thick clothing (it’s winter time), the round will expand very little, if at all.  Many times, forensics experts are unable to determine if a pistol gunshot wound was inflicted by a hollow-point round or a ball round.  Hollow point ammunition is certainly a good choice for a defensive round, but the performance in terms of penetration and permanent cavity should be used to assess performance.  Any expansion achieved will be gravy.

During the assault, you are in charge of very little.  Your attacker likely chose  the place and time.  He’ll control his actions, how many rounds he fires, and the tactics he employs.  You can control where your rounds impact his body and the type of weapon and ammunition you employ.

In order take control during an assault you must be trained.  If your training program doesn’t stress shooting on the move, shooting at moving targets, no-light engagements, and low percentage shots (partial targets), then you’re not preparing yourself to survive a violent assault.  It’s important to remember that you have to perform better than your assailant is lucky.

Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive firearms training available anywhere.  It was built on the vast personal combat experience of some of the most elite special operators in the country.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

For the record, I just use Slap and Rack.  Adding crap to the end doesn’t make people think you’re smarter, or increase the effectiveness of clearing a malfunction.  Telling someone to “squeeze” or “bang” implies that they must do those things.  I’d hope that if you needed to clear a malfunction in order to apply violence to halt an assault, that you’ll know if you need to continue shooting.

Firearms manipulation is critical within the framework of the Combat Triad – Marksmanship, Mindset, and Tactics.  Tactics is sometimes interpreted as manipulation, or gun-handling.  I like to expand the definition to include tactics because it implies not only individual proficiency, but also proficiency as a team.  All three elements must be present to survive a lethal encounter.  All three elements must likewise be present in an effective training program.  It needs to be said that weapons manipulation should also include backup and off duty weapons.  While this may seem a simple thing, there is ample evidence to reinforce the importance of effective firearms manipulation.

During a physical struggle, an assailant fired his weapon and wounded an officer.  The officer returned fire, missing the assailant before experiencing a malfunction with his duty firearm (a semi-automatic pistol).  The officer eventually fell to the ground.  As he hit the ground, the officer lost control of his weapon and the assailant fired two more rounds one of which struck the officer before he fled.  In his own words:

“I was annoyed that the gun didn’t work anymore and I didn’t see any malfunction and it was like a twilight zone or something.  The gun functions, and, for some reason, I have missed this individual and the slide has closed.  I still have a firm grip on it.  I know I have to shoot him some more.  I haven’t hit him, and the gun doesn’t work anymore.  And, during this time, I’m falling.  I’m falling at the time, and I know I’m going to shoot some more.  I know immediately that I haven’t hit him, and I was just amazed and mystified and annoyed that the gun didn’t shoot anymore.  I knew it wasn’t a stovepipe and the slide had closed.  I have to admit, as much training as we had with malfunction drills, I did not consider doing a malfunction drill.”

The simple analysis is this:  the officer was so intent on shooting the assailant, he couldn’t do what was immediately required – slap and rack.   He violated the most basic of principles – when it’s time to shoot, you shoot; when it’s time to reload, you reload; and when it’s time to conduct a malfunction drill, you fix your gun.  It’s like Ecclesiastes chapter 3, only for gunfighters.  At the time of the shooting, the officer had over 20 years of experience in law enforcement and had served as a firearms instructor for over 12 years.  The lesson for the rest of us is clear.  During the stress and violence of an assault, years of experience or possessing the proper credentials will not deter your assailant nor will it protect you from bad training habits.  If it can happen to an experienced officer, it can happen to all of us.

Ensure that shortcuts aren’t taken in your training.  A holistic firearms training program is critical to ensure officer survival.  Marksmanship, mindset and tactics must be present in equal parts.  Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive and realistic training programs possible.  We are available to provide both training and training support to organizations desiring to advance their firearms training.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

Analysts can study the statistics of assaults against law enforcement personnel for years without positively impacting training.  The numbers are simply too one-dimensional: night time is more dangerous than daytime, rifles are more deadly than pistols, etc, etc, ad nauseum.   In order to advance the efficacy of training, the data must be translated into a paradigm shift.  Determining the causal relationship between the “inputs” of training and the “outputs” of actions under stress should drive improvements to training.

To deconstruct every aspect of firearms training would entail writing a series of books that someone smarter than me will have to undertake.  In order to keep the voluminous data manageable, I’ll focus on just two simple concepts: which tasks agencies choose to train and how the training is conducted.

Determining which tasks to train can seem like a straightforward process.  The selection of tasks however, is the simplest aspect of planning.  The more critical task is determining the desired endstate for each task.  As an example, lets assume that an agency is interested in accuracy as part of the firearms training program.  Sounds easy, right?  Give me officers who are accurate with their department-issued handguns.  But accuracy to what standard?  Accurate at what range?  Under what conditions?  Do officers need to be accurate while shooting on the move?  One-handed?  Weak hand?  Law enforcement leadership has a greater responsibility to their officers than just declaring “Accuracy for all!”

To a large degree, the manner in which training is conducted will determine its effectiveness.  By staying with the example of accuracy as a goal, we can illustrate this.  The simplest way to measure accuracy is to draw a bullseye on a paper target and assign point values to each ring.  The simplicity of this method is attractive to law enforcement agencies.  In fact, shooting bullseyes from 25 meters is a daily task for Special Forces soldiers during advanced firearms training courses (SFAUC, SFARTAETC).  Engaging paper targets has value, but it won’t prepare officers for a violent assault.  The unfortunate truth is that many agencies extrapolate the value of using paper targets to develop a qualification program which is simplified to the point of uselessness.  Officers engage stationary targets from stationary positions during daylight hours with minimal stress.  Standards for qualifying are so low that officers pass the “test” once a year without needing any additional training.  This approach ignores the realities of modern day gunfighting.

This entry  serves as a primer to firearms training development.  In future entries, I’ll cite case studies to highlight specific training shortfalls which may exist within law enforcement agencies nationwide.  In the meantime, I’d encourage all law enforcement professionals to begin dissecting their training programs to identify opportunities for improvement.  Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive and realistic training programs possible.  We are available to provide both training and training support to organizations desiring to advance their firearms training.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.