Joe Huffman decided to set up the LAPD Combat Course qualifier at a USPSA match:
What this means is that in a little over a week we will have data on how the shooting skills of “a bunch of beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies” stack up to the qualification course for a major metropolitan police force.
You’ll also note that in order to comply with USPSA rules, Joe actually had to make the course more difficult. Well, the results are in.
“We put 22 people through the stages. 20 people passed with a 60% or greater. That is 90.9% passage. The best results were by Roger who scored 95.1%. Roger was shooting a revolver.”
Now, could we please dispense with this notion that gun nuts are just wild-eyed mad men who will just kill all manner of innocents if they are ever forced to recklessly defend themselves? Would a police academy class have a 90.9% passage rate on a combat qualifier?
Maybe we should have a few hillbilly rednecks teach the NYPD how to shoot…
A passing score of 60% is pathetic no matter who does the shooting.
Sorry, but you’re at least passing close to being in science in times past. You know this sample was self-selected and therefore invalid to make the sorts of conclusions you’re making.
The real world is good enough for me, plenty of civilian self-defense incidents where a third party could be at risk, much lower rate of the latter getting harmed compared to police, if my gut feelings about the number of shootings by both is correct.
People who obtain carry permits are also self-selected.
In much the same way so are police officers, but they have to put a lot more effort into it, right? (Even if too often little of that is in gun handling.)
Maybe you should actually do some research into why we did this instead of dismissing it.
These stages were designed and developed specifically because of an argument provided by the opposition. We stated we would run the qualification course as a USPSA stage.
The whole argument about self-selection is bullshit. It’s bullshit because this was merely people showing up for a weekend match. Just because it was a USPSA match doesn’t mean it’s “self-selected”. That is merely a argument used in an attempt to discard the data without grounds. Justify your assumption because of those 22 shooters, only about 10 shoot regularly at the match, even then of those 10, only 4 are rated above C in USPSA. For the sake of argument we will toss 10, you’re left with 10/12 passing which is still 83.3%. One of those failures was due to a brand new retention holster (SERPA) that he had never used before. He consistently had problems with the draw, which is only required for ONE of the 4 strings in the qualifier. The draw string has an unbelievable time on it, specifically for draw issues like he had.
Currently I am working on editing the video from the match to show exactly how much of a joke that “qualification course” is. Your dismissal is focusing in the wrong direction and your argument indicates that no matter what concealed carriers do it won’t be enough.
BTW you fall back on “Gut Feelings”. What were you saying about science and us not doing it correctly? We wanted numbers because the Anti’s specifically argue that police are more capable. If you are admitting that police are self-selected, I am still comparing apples to apples. So please, kindly move off to the side and let the adults continue the conversation. We talk with facts and numbers, not gut feelings.
Given your arguments and statements above I have no doubt that at some point you have also uttered the words, “I’m a gun owner, but…”
*Side note: Not all cops want to carry guns or enjoy them or use them. Yet they are anointed according to our opponents and yourself as they “put more effort into it”. Except they often don’t. I could have re-holstered and done the Hokie-Pokie mid string and still finished with time left over.
Harold is, FYI, on our side on the issue. He was just making a point that maybe this doesn’t prove anything scientifically. I made the point I did because I don’t think you can really, scientifically, easily or cheaply poll cops v. armed citizens on shooting skills. Your stage and the results are a piece of evidence that shows our opponent’s blanket “Armed citizens can never shoot as well as the police because they lack training!” (and that is an argument some of the other side have made) is untrue for at least this data set. I still think that’s meaningful, and given that you’ve designed the stage, the experiment can be repeated.
Anyway, I just wanted to be clear Harold isn’t an anti attacking your experiment.
There are too many personal insults coming from you and insufficient reading comprehension for us to have a rational discussion, but I should make clear that “put more effort into it” is referring to what I gather it normally takes to become a police officer vs. getting a civilian CCW license in a shall issue jurisdiction.
I.e. training that takes much more time than we are required to spend: in my home state of Missouri As few as one hundred twenty hours may be mandated for any class of license restricted to commission as a reserve peace officer vs. a requirement of 8 hours to get a Missouri CCW endorsement.
60% used to be a failing grade in most anything……
“Now, could we please dispense with this notion that gun nuts are just wild-eyed mad men who will just kill all manner of innocents if they are ever forced to recklessly defend themselves? Would a police academy class have a 90.9% passage rate on a combat qualifier?”
No because the anti-rights people don’t care about facts or reality, unless they paid researchers to cherry pick and skew the numbers to create the “facts” for them.
I kind of want to take a couple of folks who have never shot, run them through NRA Basic Pistol, and them run them through the NJ police qualifier, which is a static course of fire.
This doesn’t really tell us much about how well the average gun owner or CCW citizen is with their gun—it tells us how good a bunch of citizens who are very much into shooting and practicing are. Many (most?) gun owners are passive gun owners—they have a gun, but they aren’t necessarily proficient with it, and probably don’t put much effort into becoming so. It’s quite possible that they’d still be as good as a major metropolitan police force, but this interesting exercise does not really prove that, does it?
Hence my gedankenexperiment above. I’ve been meaning to put my foot where my mouth is anyway and shoot the NJ police qualifier, and I am a relatively unpracticed shooter.
What’s the qualifier? I may be able to work something up.
http://www.state.nj.us/lps/dcj/agguide/firearms.htm – there’s a pdf at that link. FWIW, if you somehow get an NJ permit to possess a firearm, you have to qualify to the same requirements as the NJ police biannually. The one place I know of that certifies charges around $80 to do so, or did the last time I saw a price list, anyway.
Rhetorical question: how does one “uncock” a Glock, anyway? Pretty instructions, semi-automatic firearms must be “uncocked” prior to bolstering during tests…
And the New Jersey State Police use or used H&K P7M8 squeeze cockers; if you’re not familiar with the design, they only cock when you squeeze the grip, the whole front of it is a lever.