User Panel
Posted: 5/27/2003 5:42:56 AM EDT
Preface - this is not cop bashing.
So...I'm out shooting my 700 LTR, printing .4MOA 5-shot groups average. After I'd been there about an hour, this gentleman shows up with a couple of Pelican cases and starts setting up a couple spaces down from me. First case opened up, and out comes a brand spanking new HK G36K. Second case opened up, and lo, a new HS Precision with all the bells and whistles in .300 WSM. Went back to my shooting. After hearing several tooth-rattling blasts, I swing my spotting scope over to see how he's doing, figuring that anyone with the taste to buy a rifle like that can probably shoot pretty well. (I'm in prone, so he can't see me looking at his target- no need to be outwardly rude.) Wow. If I spent what he probably did (or his department) on that rifle I'd want my money back...or at least a trip to Thunder Ranch to learn how to use it. 3" groups at 100 yards. Not just once, but several times. He did get lucky and have one or two tighter ones..but we're still talking about 1.5". I would have chalked it up to nothing, and not had another thought about it, as it was no real concern of mine anyway... but I overheard him telling his buddy that he figured he was ready for duty with this rig. Holy cowabunga. Q[>:/]S |
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It's the cool toy concept.
It's cool to buy fancy new toys to show off. You can't show off training. I hear so many LEO's complain about the lack of $$$ in the budgets for training, yet these departments seem to always have the latest and greatest toys. It is a priority problem, they don't realise you are better off with well trained users and decent equipment than half ass trained users and top of the line equipment. I see the same thing in the fire service, some departments we run mutual aid with have all the newest stuff but can't ever seem to get thier act together on the fire scene, while others use old hand me down trucks and equipment but are first rate on scene and well trained. I know what group I would rather respond with. A stock PSS with decent optics PLUS a trip somewhere to learn the basics of how to use it would have run the department less, and paid off big time in the long run when the civil liability suits from the misuse of the weapon comes about. |
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I can do that well with an AR15 with Aimpoint sights...man an accurized rifle only printing 3 MoA at 100 yards???
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My experience with the G36 is you couldn't give me one.
3" at 100yds would be more than adequate for the range a city cop would ever need. |
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You're probably right. Hell, I'd bet that for what they paid for those two weapons, they could have gotten an M4 and a PSS, and sent TWO people to Thunder Ranch.
Just 'cuz you own a Stradivarius don't make you a Jascha Heifetz. |
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Quoted: My experience with the G36 is you couldn't give me one. 3" at 100yds would be more than adequate for the range a city cop would ever need. View Quote No, I'm talking about 3" with the boltgun! I don't even know what he was doing with the 36K. |
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Many police departments do NOT want their officers shooting better than 4 MOA at 100 yards.
This is to avoid the "why did not you shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand" legal argument. Several folks had to requalify due to this restriction. |
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Quoted: Many police departments do NOT want their officers shooting better than 4 MOA at 100 yards. This is to avoid the "why did not you shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand" legal argument. Several folks had to requalify due to this restriction. View Quote Thats the scariest thing I have ever seen regarding LEO weapons. Some departments now prefer incompetence. I'm glad that madness has not spread this far, the departments here still have preservation of human life as thier first priority, not litigation avoidance. |
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Quoted: Many police departments do NOT want their officers shooting better than 4 MOA at 100 yards. This is to avoid the "why did not you shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand" legal argument. Several folks had to requalify due to this restriction. View Quote Not meaning to be rude, but I really need to see proof of that. I can see the countering legal argument, "Officer, is it true your dept trains you to be inaccurate in use of deadly force?" Edited to add: I've been a police use of force and firearms instructor since 1988. Been to all the schools, shotgun, pistol, subgun, rifle, FBI instructor courses, etc. I have never heard this, even as a joke. You'd think in all that time someone would have mentioned it. |
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Quoted: Thats the scariest thing I have ever seen regarding LEO weapons. Some departments now prefer incompetence. I'm glad that madness has not spread this far, the departments here still have preservation of human life as thier first priority, not litigation avoidance. View Quote Don't kid your self, the L word (liability) is a driving force in a whole bunch of decisions. First is how to avoid, the L word. Next is if we have the L word, how do we minimize it. Next can be if we have the L word, can we minimize or eliminate it by serving up a sacrifice, an officer or officers, as a sacrifice. Nextly LAPD did "weapons disablement" tests. Yes they are talking about shooting a weapon in a BG's hand, grasp, to destroy that weapon. Apparently in testing they were fairly succesful. Of course that tactic can only be used in deadly force situations. I'm sure though if it is used a few times, ANYTIME the police use deadly force and someone get injured or killed the question will be "why didn't you disable the BG's weapon"? The news media is good for ridiculous deadly force questions. "Why didn't you shoot to wound"? "Why would you shoot a guy with a knife"? And on and on. I haven't heard of trying to be intentionally less accurate than possible. On of my co-workers is making .308 cloverleafs at 100 yds. regularly. No one has told him to open the groups up. Basically the target area is appx twice the size of your thumbnail. Accuracy does count. |
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Oly, I know litigation fears drive a lot of stuff, but demanding incompent qualifications?
If they really do that, it is seriously gonna bite em on the ass if they ever hit the wrong person. If I was on a jury I could possibly be convinced that it is possible to screw up, everyone does that at times. But if a department was being sued for wrongfull death and produced qualification records and targets that showed thier "sharpshooters" were hitting 4 moa, that city would be bankrupt. [b]Plus, I question integrity, not to mention the legality, of intentionaly faking qualification data that you think may end up in court. I wouldn't trust a department that does that to be any more truthfull about anything else in court either.[/b] |
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Quoted: Many police departments do NOT want their officers shooting better than 4 MOA at 100 yards. This is to avoid the "why did not you shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand" legal argument. Several folks had to requalify due to this restriction. View Quote Ah yes the movie shooting legal argument. The sorry thing is I've heard a lawyer ask that of police officer on the stand and the officer looked at the woman and said with all due respect, because this was not some candyass action movie. I had to leave the court room I started laughing so hard so i don't know what else he said after that, but that was all i needed to hear. I don't know how it is with the LEO's that hang out here, but in my city it seems like there are, and I'm sure it's like this everywhere, those officers who are dedicated to knowing what the hell they are doing, and who are into training and learning the tools and tricks of the trade, and there are those that are not. It's just like any profession. I've run into LEO's who after seeing them shoot I've thought damn thats some PPS, and other times I've meet LEOs who I think damn I don't want to be in his/her sights. It all depends on how much time and effort you put into training. |
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I would sure like to know what department he is from... No.. Dont tell me.. It would just piss me off.. |
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Don't know..he was not driving a [Elwood]Cop Car[/Elwood]. Probably not too many depts around here with G36Ks though.
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Quoted: Not meaning to be rude, but I really need to see proof of that. I can see the countering legal argument, "Officer, is it true your dept trains you to be inaccurate in use of deadly force?" View Quote I just report what I have experienced. Several officers were invited back to pistol qualification after getting perfect scores. They were told to shoot low and make their groups larger. Since I only shot 98%, I was not invited back. |
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Most qualifications that I have heard of nowadays are scored Pass/Fail. You can pass with 100% or 80%. Just like you could fail with 69% or 1%.
So if quals are scored that way, I see no reason to "open up" things. It's just a Pass. .25 MOA target or 2 MOA target. No one saves targets either. |
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So I guess I won't tell you about the new rifles each officer is getting in my dept. Oh well here goes:
[b]Tactical Operations - Tango 51's[/b] [img]http://www.imt.net/~mele/images/tang51a.jpg[/img] The Tango series is the flagship of Tac Ops rifles. The Tango was designed from the ground up to be the ultimate tactical precision rifle. The stock incorporates a 1” Decelerator pad, a semi-wide beavertail, dual palm swells and custom texturing that provide positive control in all environmental conditions. All of the metal is finished in an extremely durable, self-lubricating finish that can withstand the harshest operational environments. No expense has been spared and no detail overlooked in the engineering of the Tango series of rifles. They have proven themselves in the ultimate tests, real life crisis situations, and performed flawlessly. The rifles have been featured in national and international publications, with the authors amazed at the rifles’ level of accuracy. Words alone cannot adequately describe the quality and performance of these rifles. They must be handled and shot to truly appreciate their capabilities. Tac Ops recommends the rifle be used 30% of the time in the prone position, and 70% of the time in other positions. Due to the intended purpose of this rifle, the ergonomics of the Tango is rated at 9 (on a scale of 10). View Quote [url] http://www.snipercentral.com/tango51.htm[/url] What?!?! I'm dreaming? Oh OK, one could only wish right?[:D] |
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Damnit Wave, I was about to apply to your dept!
Just as a thought, How does anyone know the guy with all the cool toys was a cop in the first place? Just the guns alone is way above any cops salary that I know of. |
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Because the Pelican cases were marked SGT So-and-So, he was wearing a badge on his belt, and the weapons both had rack numbers painted on the stocks. And, the G36K is a short-barreled MG.
I'm not REAL smart...but I did make an inference based on that...[:D] |
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Quoted: Many police departments do NOT want their officers shooting better than 4 MOA at 100 yards. This is to avoid the "why did not you shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand" legal argument. Several folks had to requalify due to this restriction. View Quote This is a persistent old wives tail among non-shooter type LEO's, but I have never before heard of any Agency buying into it. Most likely some training officer's personal opinion that became "policy" with no official endorsement...(Policy is what you DO...not what you SAY you do!) If you want to see some asses scramble for cover, write a memo about it asking for the policy statement cite in the rules & regs...they know old memos never disappear. Or maybe we should raise the BS flag... |
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Well that explains it, he's a supervisor and not a grunt actually getting out on patrol!
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Quoted: Well that explains it, he's a supervisor and not a grunt actually getting out on patrol! View Quote Hell get out in the rural areas and everyone does patrol. A shift in my county has 5 patrol deputies, 1 LT 1 SGT 3 regular officers, and they all answer calls. One works the east end, one the west end, one the middle, and when one gets tied up on a call the SGT and LT move over towards that end to back them up and cover that end for other calls. The LT and SGT do everything the others do on a shift plus thier supervisory stuff. |
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Quoted: Because the Pelican cases were marked SGT So-and-So, he was wearing a badge on his belt, and the weapons both had rack numbers painted on the stocks. And, the G36K is a short-barreled MG. I'm not REAL smart...but I did make an inference based on that...[:D] View Quote Just curious, were you shooting suppressed?? I prolly would have walked over and asked him if his barrel was screwed on tight..[:D] |
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muWAHAHAHAHA....
I was shooting my suppressed 77/22 in addition to my LTR. My Gemtech TPR-S for the .308 isn't in my hot little hands yet. If NFA Branch will move out smartly maybe I can have it before Labor Day...lol.. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Well that explains it, he's a supervisor and not a grunt actually getting out on patrol! View Quote Hell get out in the rural areas and everyone does patrol. A shift in my county has 5 patrol deputies, 1 LT 1 SGT 3 regular officers, and they all answer calls. One works the east end, one the west end, one the middle, and when one gets tied up on a call the SGT and LT move over towards that end to back them up and cover that end for other calls. The LT and SGT do everything the others do on a shift plus thier supervisory stuff. View Quote Our elected Sheriff often answers calls in the middle of the night. Just as it should be... |
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Quoted: Damnit Wave, I was about to apply to your dept! Just as a thought, How does anyone know the guy with all the cool toys was a cop in the first place? Just the guns alone is way above any cops salary that I know of. View Quote Not too many private citizens have G36s, by the way. |
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Just a thought, Yesterday I watched some guy with a shorty and all the attachments you could ever want shoot "minute of washtub" at the 50 yard line. I don't think he even hit the 100.
By contrast, the cop shooting next to him with a Remington pump and iron sights kept an entire box of .22's in the 10 ring. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Well that explains it, he's a supervisor and not a grunt actually getting out on patrol! View Quote Hell get out in the rural areas and everyone does patrol. A shift in my county has 5 patrol deputies, 1 LT 1 SGT 3 regular officers, and they all answer calls. One works the east end, one the west end, one the middle, and when one gets tied up on a call the SGT and LT move over towards that end to back them up and cover that end for other calls. The LT and SGT do everything the others do on a shift plus thier supervisory stuff. View Quote Our elected Sheriff often answers calls in the middle of the night. Just as it should be... View Quote Ours will sometimes, always whenever something big pops up. |
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Quoted: muWAHAHAHAHA.... I was shooting my suppressed 77/22 in addition to my LTR. My Gemtech TPR-S for the .308 isn't in my hot little hands yet. If NFA Branch will move out smartly maybe I can have it before Labor Day...lol.. View Quote Did he look at your stuff? Question you? Is it a leo range? Did ya know him? I'm kinda surprised he didn't strike up a conversation if you were shooting suppressed, and he didn't know you.. |
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Nope, not an LEO range...he looked over at me a couple of times, but never said anything. Never saw him before.
No one has ever screwed with me at all on wanting to see my paperwork. |
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Quoted: Nope, not an LEO range...he looked over at me a couple of times, but never said anything. Never saw him before. No one has ever screwed with me at all on wanting to see my paperwork. View Quote That's kinda the way it is in these parts too. Someone may start a conversation, but it's usually 'cause they wanna try them out!! [:D] |
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Quoted: Just a thought, Yesterday I watched some guy with a shorty and all the attachments you could ever want shoot "minute of washtub" at the 50 yard line. I don't think he even hit the 100. By contrast, the cop shooting next to him with a Remington pump and iron sights kept an entire box of .22's in the 10 ring. View Quote Yeah John, sure you did. Everyone on this board knows Cops can't shoot worth a damn. Hell, anyone on this board can out shoot any Cop any day. Just ask 'em. [sleep] |
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Quoted: Just a thought, Yesterday I watched some guy with a shorty and all the attachments you could ever want shoot "minute of washtub" at the 50 yard line. I don't think he even hit the 100. By contrast, the cop shooting next to him with a Remington pump and iron sights kept an entire box of .22's in the 10 ring. View Quote True, but the taxpayers don't pay for yhat guys M4 and ammo, if my taxdollars paid for a super expensive rifle and optics I would expect them to be used competently. If the guy buys it himself then thats his stupidity for paying extra $$ for a capability his is incapable of using. |
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Alot of cops are untrained losers. I watched them practice here in Dallas over a Mountain creek lake. Than ran a military type raid which has room for casualties. In the military, casualties are expected for the police they are not. Hell, my brother and I could whip the $hit out of DPD, and all we do is play "Navy Seals". All our exercise are live fire. Now maybe we are weird, who knows? Half of us "Navy Seal" actors here at AR15.com could whip the $hit out of typical LE. I know there are others. Most of them know how to look cool and stuff, but dont know what real gunfire is. I remember when I used to duck at the sound of gun fire, now it's analyze whats going on and then act.
GG |
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If he is his departments "sniper" then I wish he could shoot better than that. But the reality is keeping every round in a 3" group is more than good for LE sniping.
The average shot a LE sniper takes is 72 yards and the brain pan is larger than 3" at any angle. |
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my agency went to a "pass" or "fail" scoring system for qualification. Until that point I had fired a perfect score every time.
Risk management recommended the pass/fail system so we could avoid the "shoot the gun out of his hand" arguement in wrongfull death suits. |
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Quoted: If he is his departments "sniper" then I wish he could shoot better than that. But the reality is keeping every round in a 3" group is more than good for LE sniping. The average shot a LE sniper takes is 72 yards and the brain pan is larger than 3" at any angle. View Quote This is true...then I'm at least idly curious why they (whoever the agency was) saw fit to waste about $3,000 of my tax dollars on a .300WSM when they could have just as easily bought a Savage Tactical and $500 Loopy scope and been just as well off. |
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Quoted: Quoted: If he is his departments "sniper" then I wish he could shoot better than that. But the reality is keeping every round in a 3" group is more than good for LE sniping. The average shot a LE sniper takes is 72 yards and the brain pan is larger than 3" at any angle. View Quote This is true...then I'm at least idly curious why they (whoever the agency was) saw fit to waste about $3,000 of my tax dollars on a .300WSM when they could have just as easily bought a Savage Tactical and $500 Loopy scope and been just as well off. View Quote See my first post on this topic, it's the cool toy concept. |
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I outshoot cops all the time in IDPA and I'm just classified as a marksman.
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The only Cop I know personally is always telling me that he's the ONLY one that ever practices with his sidearm. The others, he says, care nothing about being proficient with it until it's time to qualify, and then as long as they do qualify, they're happy.
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Quoted: The only Cop I know personally is always telling me that he's the ONLY one that ever practices with his sidearm. The others, he says, care nothing about being proficient with it until it's time to qualify, and then as long as they do qualify, they're happy. View Quote Bingo! That's pretty much it. Most of the LEO's on this board are the "gun buffs", the rest well... |
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mike103 regularly kicks my ass in skeet. In fact i have never come close to his scores.
Wave on the other hand.... |
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Quoted: Quoted: The only Cop I know personally is always telling me that he's the ONLY one that ever practices with his sidearm. The others, he says, care nothing about being proficient with it until it's time to qualify, and then as long as they do qualify, they're happy. View Quote Bingo! That's pretty much it. Most of the LEO's on this board are the "gun buffs", the rest well... View Quote |
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Quoted: Quoted: Just a thought, Yesterday I watched some guy with a shorty and all the attachments you could ever want shoot "minute of washtub" at the 50 yard line. I don't think he even hit the 100. By contrast, the cop shooting next to him with a Remington pump and iron sights kept an entire box of .22's in the 10 ring. View Quote Yeah John, sure you did. Everyone on this board knows Cops can't shoot worth a damn. Hell, anyone on this board can out shoot any Cop any day. Just ask 'em. [sleep] View Quote Unfortunately, it wasn't me. I'm not able to hold a rifle in a standing position just yet, don't have the arm strength. Off of sandbags with a .22 you are in some serious competition however! |
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Quoted: mike103 regularly kicks my ass in skeet. In fact i have never come close to his scores. [red]Thats called years of PRACTICE and experience[/red] Wave on the other hand.... [red]cut me some slack, I can do 3" groups(didn't say how far!) with the shotgun![/red] View Quote |
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The people on this site like to pull the trigger, several thousand times a year, both LEO and non LEO alike. Many LEO's just like many other people do not like to shoot and only shoot when they have to. That does not mean they would be no good in a fight. There are many shooters who would be worth a fuck in a fight. A stand up gunfight is won by someone who can reach down into his ballbag and come out with the intestinal fortitude to get the job done. MIKE.
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Quoted: The only Cop I know personally is always telling me that he's the ONLY one that ever practices with his sidearm. The others, he says, care nothing about being proficient with it until it's time to qualify, and then as long as they do qualify, they're happy. View Quote A lot of truth here. I occasionally shoot with a couple of LEOs, but they are shooters(like us) that happen to make their living as a LEO. Once/ year the cops have a get-together in PA, called the 'Police Olympics' and our club scheduled a match for any interested parties. As a shooter in the sponsering league, I was allowed to shoot. I 'bronzed'. I think my score was a VERY LOW 400 out of 500. (Piss poor)Most of the regular(read 'good') shooters were not there. This is FUBAR, as I'm really not that good. LEOs are trained basically with pistols and shotguns, in addition to that, they are faced with the liability issue as well as department budget issues. They're often only issued a couple of boxes of ammo/year for practice, generally Blazer. Let's face it, any decent IPSC shooter pops off 20-50K rounds/ year. Most LEOs can't afford the money for ammo, especially if they have young kids to support(a divorced cop gets crucified) Like many things, the average LEO is a victim of many things. Politics, the courts, department budgets, asshole pols, and many other things. Including piss poor training and leadership. We bitch about LEOs, but when you get down to it, there's a lot to be said for most of them overcoming these problems. I think the average LEO would probably like to shoot/learn better LEO skills, but doesn't have the opportunity. Some time ago, I offered the training guy at the local PD the opportunity to use our local range and get some SERIOUS coaching from some damned good shooters. He gave me some pompous ass reply about 'Police needs' and so on and that they had a 100 yd range yada yada yada. I told him that the XTC match was 2,3 and 600 yards and he paled. Then he acted like I was a Lee Harvey Oswald wannabe and stomped off really embarrassed. Seeing a 300 yd rapid target with a 100-10X score in the back of my pickup was the last straw.(I had been using it at 100 yds to check a group, sandbagged. He didn't ask, so I didn't tell. By this time I had lost respect for him.Let him think I did it offhand at 300!) His mentality saeemed to be: 'The patrolmen won't respect me if I don't teach them myself', the cousin of NIH(not invented here) IMHO, 95% of the LEOs out there would CHEERFULLY accept schooling from a non-LEO NRA qualified HM if it means learning a skill that helps insure they get to go home at the end of their shift. I once opened a popped lot of eyes wide once when a CLEO and I crossed swords once. I told him I wanted to see a civvie review board, not to second guess working cops, but to make sure that good working LEOs weren't being thrown to the wolves by CYA supervisors. Not bashing, but the truth as I see it. |
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