I recently wrote a both well-received and not-so-well received article on the follies and foibles of inappropriate and irresponsible muzzle pointing by law enforcement officers. For those who did not agree with it, I thought the least I could do is expound…and double down. We all occasionally suffer from confirmation bias when we hear something we disagree with. Unfortunately, too many of us would rather win an argument than learn from it.
Doubling down
Recently, some law enforcement expert witnesses did a Modcast at Matt Landfair’s Primary and Secondary YouTube channel to further expound on the principles of responsible muzzle direction in professional police work. They did this partially in response to the aforementioned article. If you aren’t following this YouTube channel and the P&S forum, you are missing out on one of the best cadres of high-information folks on the Internet. Their abbreviated CVs are listed below.
Chuck Haggard started his career training under greats like the Jim Lindell (the founder and president of The National Law Enforcement Training Center) and the Vince O’Neill who was, until his retirement, considered one of the greatest firearms and defensive tactics instructors in the world by those in the know. Chuck absorbed that knowledge and morphed it into his own brand of instructor excellence. He is one of the most sought-after experts in the instructor realms of firearms, human behavior, less-lethal, and almost anything else force-related. He has served as an expert witness in many state and federal court cases.
Daryl Bolke is a retired police officer from Southern California. He was a Senior Corporal and Firearms Instructor and Armorer assigned to SWAT for over 17 years as well as a use of force instructor. He has been in multiple successful and in-policy officer involved shootings as well as investigating the firearms and ballistics aspects of over 75 officer involved shootings for his police agency. Darryl is recognized by several courts as an expert witness in firearms and use of force. Darryl has been in the firearms industry for well over three decades at every level from retail, retail owner, gun writer, and pro staff. He currently is a co-owner of Hardwired Tactical Shooting in Dallas, Texas. He also teaches at numerous national conferences.
Doug Deaton is considered one of the best up-and-coming use-of-force expert witnesses and consultants in the country. Deaton’s assignments at the Plano, Texas Police Department included uniformed patrol, the SWAT team, criminal investigations, Training Sergeant, and Administrative Lieutenant for the Chief of Police. He received 79 commendations and awards during his career including a Life Saving Award in 2012 and being named the Plano Police Department’s Sworn Supervisor of the Year in 2014.
Erick Gelhaus is, in my opinion, the most underrated instructors in the modern era. He is an expert in use-of-force, tactics, case law, firearms and almost anything law enforcement-related. Erick is a member of the unofficial Rangemaster Tactical Conference’s Chess Club. He has been a trainer at Gunsite since the turn of the century, has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration is simply one of the best folks I know at transferring high-level information to the everyday user. Go take one of his classes at Cougar Mountain Solutions.
Extreme examples
Back to the gun-pointing topic. Please consider the following two extreme examples:
#1: You respond to a reported active shooter at your local high school. Is it acceptable to point your gun at the kids while searching? If you have your pistol/rifle at eye level while clearing corners, how can you possibly not do so and how can you see everything you need to see?
#2: You conduct a high-risk traffic stop on a murder suspect. He steps out of the car despite your orders over the PA to stay in the vehicle and he refuses to show his hands. Do you shoot him? I hope not yet. What if he is hearing impaired and doesn’t understand you? What if he is pulling out his medical card instead of a pistol? If you are focused on your front sight which is planted squarely on his chest, how will you know?
Why go to the extreme?
You might ask why we are using extreme examples. Because that’s what this this topic inevitably degrades to: Extremes. In reality, the reality, lies within a thousand shades of gray between those extremes. What is the best practice? In my opinion and that of many others is to follow the rules of gun safety, case law, policy and common sense, no matter the situation. More importantly: Don’t default to a pre-programmed scenario in your head and just THINK.
Cooper’s three rules of gun safety
In the previous article, I broke down Colonel Jeff Cooper’s four safety rules that have become ubiquitous in firearms training. But, did you know there were only three of them at one time?
If you didn’t know Colonel Cooper only had only three original rules that he found, “sufficient,” you might step back and think: Why wasn’t the trigger finger discipline among them?
What made him change his idea to add another rule? The reason is that folks kept shooting stuff like cop cars, academy dorm rooms, guard shacks, etc. It was a secondary thought to protect property.
Somehow, though, trigger finger placement has become thought of as our primary safety, even though that probably isn’t the best practice. As stated by Mr. Haggard, if the muzzle isn’t pointed at a human being, there won’t be a tragedy.
Mistakes and teddy bears
Why isn’t simply keeping the trigger finger in register sufficient for safe police operations? Any force-on-force trainer worth their salt has caught a student sneaking their trigger finger onto the trigger (known as “trigger affirmation”) for a perceived advantage in reaction time. Frighteningly, we see this phenomenon on body camera videos regularly. As Mr. Haggard says, “If the muzzle is not pointing at another human, there won’t be a tragedy.”
Proper muzzle discipline
We’ve spent a lot of energy talking about where not to point guns. If a pistol is out of the holster or if a long gun is in our hands, where should the muzzle be pointed? The least consequential place and hopefully, not another human being who you have no intention of shooting. There is no perfect answer. The best we can do is minimize the risk.
Low ready v. high ready v. holster ready v. hard decisions
To paraphrase Mr. Bolke: One can do this job professionally, competently and effectively without violating the firearms safety rules. This concept seems to be lost on some. In reference to this topic, another trainer told me, “That’s not for that.” I believe he meant the firearms safety rules don’t need to be applied to law enforcement tactics.
Generational conversations
Why do we keep having these same conversations that lead to the same conclusions every few decades? It’s because we — in law enforcement — hate two things equally: Change and the way things are. Can we just stop relearning this particular lesson? It will keep a lot of people above ground and out of prison.
