You Call That "Expert" Shooting?
Publication
Lewinski, W. J., Avery, R., Dysterheft, J., Dicks, N. D., & Bushey, J. (2015). The real risks during deadly police shootouts: Accuracy of the naïve shooter. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 17(2), 117-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461355715582975
What Was the Issue?
The authors of this study wanted to assess how effective police firearms training was. They were particularly interested in the accuracy of untrained shooters. This interest stems from the fact that most suspects involved in police shootings lack formal firearms training.
How Did They Look at It?
The authors recruited 247 participants from two police academies and one certified law enforcement preparation academy at a college. They classified these participants as Expert, Intermediate, or Novice based on their previous experience. Participants were classified as Experts if they had completed formal law enforcement or military handgun training. Intermediate participants either had previous experience with shooting a rifle or pistol (such as hunting or recreational shooting) or military firearms training that did not involve pistols. Novice participants had either no or minimal experience with firearms.
Each participant fired 3 rounds at 9 different distances ranging from 3 feet to 75 feet at upper torso and head type targets. The order in which they shot from these distances was randomized. The participants were instructed to shoot as quickly as they could while still being accurate.
What Did They Find?
The figure below shows the accuracy percentages at different ranges for each group.
There was a small statistically significant difference in accuracy between the experts and intermediates in the 3-15ft category, but they were not statistically different for the other distances or overall. Both the Experts and Intermediates shot better than the novices across all the ranges.
The authors also assessed where the groups shot (head vs. body) and when shots were potentially more lethal (based on potential to disrupt the central nervous system). I recommend looking at the original article if you want the details, but they basically found that novices tended to aim for the head at closer distances, shifting their aim to the torso as distance increased. More experienced shooters consistently hit areas that were potentially more lethal, regardless of range.
So What?
The authors observed that these results suggest that law enforcement firearms training is not very effective. The “experts” who had completed police training only did slightly better than novices with no or minimal experience. Even more concerning, they performed no better than the Intermediate group—which raises serious questions about the real value added by formal police firearms training. They also note that this was under conditions of minimal stress and performance in actual shootings would likely be lower.
The authors attribute the failure of police training in producing gains to two issues. The first is the extensive use of blocked practice where most or all firearms training is done in one large chunk. This has been shown to produce large initial gains that also quickly disappear after training. The second is that most training teaches the officers to focus extensively on themselves and their weapon (grip, trigger press, body, sight picture, etc.). This is called internal focus. The literature has generally found external focus is better than internal (but there are exceptions to this general rule).
My $.02
When I read this study, my first thoughts were “startling” and “concerning.” This was a relatively simple and low-stress test: fire three shots as quickly and accurately as possible. Yet from 1 to 5 yards, accuracy was under 90%. From 6 to 15 yards, it plummeted below 40% - and this was among individuals who had completed a full police training program and were considered “experts” in the study.
To me, this study shows that traditional police firearms training is clearly not effective - even at making you a good range shooter. This study's inclusion of multiple academies (and a lot of the other research I have reviewed on this stack) suggests the issue may be systemic.
Also, spaced-out practice and more external focus are potentially productive ways to improve the performance on this test, but as I have said before, range training is only important to the extent that it improves performance in the real world. Yet, standard range shooting skills do not appear to transfer well to real-world encounters. It's time to start doing better. We wouldn't accept this from surgeons, pilots, or electricians. Why should we accept it from police?
Being someone who has dabbled in both worlds, Military and Police firearms training for the unspecialized member has one goal: train as many as possible in as little time as possible to get what I'd call "good enough" hits. There is a reason many of the best shooters in both professions seek outside training and actively participate in competition-level shooting. They realize the limitations of flat-range shooting and the best analogue to "street shooting" you can get is competition.
Great article, and not surprising at all to those in the know. I've seen many a seasoned Police Officer and Service Member claim they are expert, then get mopped up by a civilian who actively participates in IDPA, IPSC, USPSA, PCSL, etc. In fact, I used to be one!! It was a humbling experience and really shed light on the deficiencies highlighted in the last few articles.
Looking forward to the next one!
Very interesting and eye-opening. I think the observations about training can be extending to testing (yearly firearm qualification). As evidenced here, marksmanship training fails to teach to the "test" of yearly flat range qualification. But additionally, the real "test" it should be preparing you for is the high stress application of that marksmanship on the street coupled with the decision making process you have to make under that same stress.