Firearms Transition Training

A recent project I worked on made me think about what firearms transition training is, or what it should be.  Transition firearms training occurs when an agency or organization moves to a new or different firearm platform.  Too often, with many agencies, this training is just a qualification course. This is wrong and dangerous. Courts have ruled that qualification is not training – see the ruling in Popow v. City of Margate.  I want to discuss why just qualifications and live fire training are insufficient when adopting a new firearm.

When a law enforcement agency adopts a new firearm, several decisions were made before that point.  One consideration is the amount of time the agency has with the previous platform.  People develop certain habits/techniques when handling firearms or equipment that they may not even be aware of.   For example, the location(s) a person places their hands and fingers on a pistol.  The most obvious example I can point to is when American law enforcement transitioned from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols.

Evolution

Whether the pistol was a double-action/single-action or striker-fired, there was an increase in negligent discharges. Because of the revolver’s heavier trigger, officers had been placing their fingers on it. Additionally, many large police departments had converted their revolvers to double-action only to help mitigate negligent discharges.

Foundation

At my previous agency, I trained officers to use the SIG P-226 pistol, a traditional double-action/single-action pistol. Most of our lateral hires had only used striker-fired pistols. I lost count of the times those officers forgot to de-cock their pistols before holstering. Our firearms training ran for three weeks and a day, so they eventually learned that step, but it would take days and constant coaching.

A significant number of issues may need to be addressed. Most pistols considered for police duty use are similar in design but have functional differences.

More Than Live Fire

If an agency only has its officers perform live fire training, it is making a huge mistake.  While officers need to go to the range, it is not enough.  This is especially true when adopting a different model.
The most straightforward reason is that officers know they will be shooting when they go to the range.  This doesn’t match what officers do on the street.  Officers will draw their pistols multiple times during their careers, but how often do they fire them outside of training?  So, what happened to all the other times that pistols were drawn?

When officers draw their pistols, it is because there is a potential threat to someone.  So, the level of anxiety is heightened, and there is a lot of movement with the pistol in hand.

Officers use their support hand to move and control objects and people and maintain their balance, all while maintaining control of their pistols in their off-hand.  Attempting to replicate this scenario on a live fire range, especially when learning to handle a new pistol, is unrealistic for safety reasons.  This type of training should be conducted in force-on-force training with marking rounds.

Off The Range

A variety of situations—such as basic patrol tactics, building searches, active shooter response, felony/high-risk traffic stops, and arrest procedures—that occur daily in law enforcement should be done in scenarios. All of these require handling the pistol outside of the holster. Another benefit of this type of training is that it forces officers to utilize more than just their pistols. The training should force them to transition between different pieces of their equipment, i.e., from a handgun to handcuffs.

Transition training doesn’t only apply to the firearm. Suppose something is added to the firearm, such as a flashlight.  This must be addressed as well.  Most handgun-mounted flashlights require the operator to manipulate the flashlight to use the light.  To do this, the operator must change their grip in some way.  Depending on the hand size of the operator, this can be a significant change in the grip.   When law enforcement added lights to their handguns, there were several incidents of negligent discharges while operating the handgun and weapon-mounted light combination.

Rifles Too

Another example I can point to involves transitioning to a new patrol rifle. The new rifle had a 2-point sling and ambidextrous controls that the previous rifle did not.  To assist officers in getting used to these differences, they kept their rifles slung during training, even when taking a break.

Why was this important?  With the rifle slung against their body, it was possible that the equipment could manipulate the rifle’s controls on their body. Also, officers learned they needed to be aware of what issues having the rifle on their bodies could cause.  For example, the selector could be rotated from Safe to Fire.  We marked the selector with white paint so it was easy to identify if this happened.

Officers also discovered that if they did not control the muzzle when picking up brass, the rifle’s muzzle could strike the ground. This reinforced the need to control their rifle when performing even regular tasks.

 

Closing Thoughts

This article focused on just the transition training for a new firearm. Pistol-mounted optics and weapon-mounted lights need to be considered as well.

There is more to firearms training than just shooting. If officers aren’t taught these skills and techniques, they may be forced to adapt on the street, and the cost could be higher than anyone can anticipate.