Ready to Shoot

Ready to Shoot

by Ed Nowicki and David Kopel

This article appeared in the <http://www.baltimoresun.com/> Baltimore Sun
on February 27, 2008.

Taking handguns away from law-abiding civilians can endanger them - that's a
familiar argument. What most people might not know is that many police
organizations also oppose handgun bans because of the harm they can cause to
police training and preparedness.

That's what we argued this month when we filed a friend-of-the-court brief
against the District of Columbia's handgun ban in the U.S. Supreme Court.
One of us, Ed Nowicki, is head of the International Law Enforcement
Educators and Trainers Association, a professional association of police
trainers. We were joined in the brief by the other major police firearms
training organization, the International Association of Law Enforcement
Firearms Instructors.

The lawful availability of handguns for citizens provides the police with a
much larger pool of recruits who have experience with handgun safety, and
who have learned basic familiarity or developed proficiency in the use of
handguns. That's why our brief was joined by a broad coalition of law
enforcement organizations, including the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police.

The widespread civilian possession of handguns also helps the police do
their job.

A citizen who has experience with handguns in hunting or target shooting
will have acquired the habit of keeping his finger off the trigger until the
last instant before the shot. For a police officer, this is a life-or-death
skill; staying off the trigger while drawing the weapon in an emergency
prevents accidental shootings.

Likewise, a police recruit who has enjoyed target shooting as a civilian
will have learned how to hold a handgun with a strong but not over-tight
grip, and how to keep the gun steady while firing, avoiding the muzzle flip
that causes missed shots.

There are only so many hours in a police academy for firearms training. If a
trainee is picking up a handgun for the first time, he will have to spend
time acquiring elementary familiarity with its operation - flipping the
safety on and off, and reloading quickly. It takes a while for these actions
to become second nature, and that time would be better spent refining
already developed skills, such as practicing engagement with multiple
targets.

Another amicus brief, filed by a group of retired generals and admirals,
makes a similar point about military training and describes research showing
that military recruits who have firearms training in civilian life perform
much better in combat.

Many innovations in police firearms training have been created by civilian
trainers, who often have more time to dedicate to the subject than do police
instructors; many police instructors do not teach fulltime, and those who do
must teach a variety of subjects. For the same reason, many police firearms
instructors are civilians.

Jeff Cooper, a civilian, invented The Modern Technique, which is now the
standard model for defensive pistolcraft. Mr. Cooper created the technique
after World War II, based on his observations that Army handgun shooting
methods were far from optimally effective. Many thousands of police officers
- and police trainers - learned their skills at Mr. Cooper's Gunsite Ranch
in Arizona. Other civilian experts, such as Massad Ayoob of New Hampshire
and John Farnam of Colorado, have also made important contributions to
handgun doctrine, and have themselves trained many police officers and
police instructors.

The widespread civilian possession of handguns also helps the police do
their job. In countries such as the United Kingdom (where handguns are
banned) or the Netherlands (where handguns are rare), the home-invasion
burglary rate is 48 percent to 59 percent, and many home-invasion burglaries
lead to assaults or rapes.

In the United States, only 13 percent of house burglaries take place when
someone is home, and studies show this is because about half of U.S.
homeowners have a gun. And handguns are by far the best guns for home
defense, because they're easy to maneuver in confined spaces and hard for
criminals to grab.

Because there are so many fewer home invasions in America, there are many
fewer emergencies to which the police must respond. Thus, the police have
more resources available to thwart, investigate or deter other crimes.

Where law-abiding people are allowed to have guns, criminals know they're
rolling the dice.