BreacherUp! said:
Show was amusing. But from a trainer's point of view, I did not see a reason for a lot of the wasted time spent with dead mice, throwing helmets, or screaming lines from Full Metal Jacket. Nor do I see a reason to enter and clear a room with a pistol in the tucked position.
The guy's heart is in the right place, but those departments could spend their $$ more wisely with a host of other qualified instructors.
C'mon - cut the guy a LITTLE slack. After all, it IS television and they have to create their little dramatic moments.
He and I actually had a decent conversation about this very thing when I got to see the pilot show a few months ago that A&E had given him. I told him that I hoped that the theatrics of television didn't detract from what he was doing. He is actually quite concerned about whether or not this show makes him look like a clown. His heart IS in the right place, and his training is good. He would not teach someone to clear a room with the weapon not at the ready.
The only thing I did not like was pointing real guns at each other. Yea, I know they were empty, but empty guns have killed lots of people.
About the whole "pointing guns at each other" bit - I would have to say that at some level you have to be comfortable that your partner is not going to shoot you. Seriously - in a room full of
trained professionals - if everyone shows an empty chamber to at least two people then what are you really afraid of?? That someone will stick a round in their chamber when you're not looking? I promise you, these guys are showing CLEAR to each other constantly. In my class, whenever I got partnered with a new guy I'd show CLEAR, as would he. Every time we left the area and came back, we showed CLEAR. It was safe - people weren't walking up from the firing line and just hoping everyone else cleared their weapons.
We are not talking about officers fresh out of the academy, we are not talking about Joe off the street who is taking his first class after getting his CHL. We're talking about PROFESSIONAL SHOOTERS.
We did an interesting confidence drill in our Instructor's Course with Castle. In our course, no two guys were from the same department...we had come from all over the country to Nashville to train with him - so we were all strangers to each other at the beginning of the week.
On day 3 Paul asked a SWAT guy from Illinois to stand in between two targets...and the guy did. Then Paul asked me to run through one of the shooting drills...and not to shoot my partner. After a quick exchange of glances, both of us were ready and I stepped up to the line. Before I could unholster my weapon, Paul stopped us and explained that we had just done what 99% of the teams he had trained had balked at doing - most of the people he asks to do that begin to stutter and complain about not being safe. When pressed, the guy standing between the targets usually says something to the effect of "I don't trust him to not shoot me"....
Yet, me and this guy I barely knew had stepped up to the plate with no hesitation - confident in each other's abilities.
Come on, people...these guys are SRT's!! They clear buildings with each other, they back each other up, they cover each other's backs when the SHTF. And THEY DON'T TRUST EACH OTHER?? What would happen if one of them was required to take a shot past his partner in a real situation? Would he hesitate because he had never prepared himself
Point was - if you're a professional, then act accordingly. If you're training with a group of professionals, you should assess everyone's skill accordingly and be comfortable that the people around you are highly trained and are all as committed to safety as they should be.
In real life, if you're a cop or SWAT officer, you might very well have to take a shot like that one day - if you don't have the confidence to do it in training what makes you think you'll have the confidence when you need it?
Same goes for "pointing" weapons at each other. In a room full of trained professionals taking PLENTY of precautions - those weapons are as safe as a plastic blank.
I agree that those techniques are not for everyone...but then are you telling me that a room full of SWAT officers can't be trusted to clear their weapons?
I think we're getting distracted by the wrong things. Sorry if that came out a bit rough - it wasn't meant as an attack.