One does not need to know the size of the engine; even the gas is usually obtained at the department pump. A competent cop still must know how to DRIVE the car, including pursuit and evasive driving.
A competent cop should also know the model and caliber of her/his gun in case additional ammo is needed on-scene. And a cop who carries the gun and mags on the same side is almost certainly not properly trained.
But there's the rub, isn't it? The department provides gas, all she has to do is pump it, because she doesn't fuel the PD cruiser on her personal time. The department provides the gun and ammo, and all she has to do is shoot it at the PD range with the ammo they give her, because she doesn't shoot it on her personal time.
It's flawed logic, of course, to anyone who knows or cares anything about guns (i.e., people on gun forums). But most cops don't have a firearms lifestyle.
A competent cop should also know the model and caliber of her/his gun in case additional ammo is needed on-scene. And a cop who carries the gun and mags on the same side is almost certainly not properly trained.
Agreed 100%. They should also have more than just the ammo in their mags in their cruiser.
About the guns and mags on the same side, some departments have policies on how their equipment is carried (firearm on "strong side," Taser/baton on the "weak" side, to avoid another
BART-style shooting). If this is one of those 5 foot tall 110 pound female cops I see around, her waist might not be very big, which wouldn't give her much room on the duty belt. Pistol, two pairs of cuffs, can of OC, baton, radio, flashlight, rubber gloves fills up a duty belt quick for someone with a 34 inch waist, nevermind someone with a sub-28 inch waist. For sure, ammo on the same side of the gun on the duty belt with a semi auto is a poor choice, but again, there's more to this than just shooting. It might be that she carries them strong side or not at all.
Yep. GSG you make a good point but like Keith said, you have to know what you're doing with the tool. Something as simple as caliber is the same as diesel or unleaded. She didn't know. She shouldn't be an LEO. Pretty simple.
I don't doubt it. I've told cops to their face "You're going to get killed" or "You need to spend more time at the range" or (to the cop who had a bad interaction with a violent scumbag he arrested while at dinner with his family) "You need to carry off duty more, and buy a little snub nose if it's all you can hide."
Larry Jupin was a gun guy, and Jason Rivers, his killer, almost never went to the range outside of his time in the military. Some of Larry's closest friends have remarked to me how if there was anyone on their PD who should've prevailed in a gunfight, it was Larry. He had all the skills and know-how, but in the dark at night against a guy with a stolen revolver he fought and lost. He survived longenough to make it to the hospital where he got to see his family and friends one more time before he died an ugly and drawn out death.
Cops look at things like that and think "What's the point?" You and I might recognize that sometimes sh** happens in gunfights, and life isn't fair, but that's no excuse not to train. Cops see things like this and get discouraged, or some see it as further proof that time on the range won't do anything to save your life in the field.
Again, I'm not defending people who take a job that means spending most of their life fighting and then get out of shape and lazy and don't hone lifesaving skills. I'm saying that either through apathy or failures in training or stupidity or all of the above, some cops do not and will not care about guns.
On more thing. Should our soldiers stop knowing about their rifles or pistols because they are more likely to be blown up by an IED? Seriously I can't stand the way you guys knee jerk defend this b.s. ignorance.
No, soldiers should know plenty about their rifles. But depending on which figures you believe, 40-60% of coalition deaths in Iraq (about half) are caused by IED's. But is this reflected in training? Is half of the weapons training in basic and infantry school about identifying and avoiding IEDs? I wouldn't know, I've never been to either, and I wouldn't defend foolish soldiers who don't take it upon themselves to learn anything about IED's other than what the Army/USMC tells them about them in training.
But with that said, what percentage of soldiers spend their personal time training for dealing with IEDs? I'm willing to bet it's a small number compared to the total number in the field.
Some nice straw man arguments there. She doesn't need to know the engine size unless she's going to be ordering repair parts - totally different than not knowing what ammo your gun takes. Same as if she didn't know the brand - not needed to perform her job. Knowledge of how her gun works and what it fires? Needed.
Funny, she's not ordering repair parts for the gun. The armorer might even clean it for her, depending on the department. Another issue sometimes overlooked is how females are treated differently in training on PD's, let off easy.
There's a police firearms instructor training video that shows
Peggy Parks at the range qualifying with her department. It was treated like a big joke, she couldn't hit the target stand, and she just acted cute and giggly the whole time, and the firearms trainer shook his head and laughed like it was funny.
After she was killed her PD trainer retired and has never instructed anyone on the range again after the guilt he felt for his glaring failures in training her to protect her life. He speaks at seminars now for trainers, after showing the video of his failure.
If she's not a gun person to begin with, and she sucks with big heavy revolvers on top of that, and her teacher fails her as a student, where is she left? What are her chances in the field? We know that answer already.
One more instance of The Thin Blue Line - they simply CANNOT stand any criticism of their own. Sorry, guys - you do a needed job, but you really need to take off the blinders when it comes to one of your own who's an idiot or incompetent.
I'm not a cop. I hope to be someday, I'm pursuing that now. And I'm not wearing blinders, I'm a very gun guy, and at the last firearms training I attended I helped out some people who needed it, offered help where I could, and shook my head at a few idiots. But what can I do? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
A trained driver should know that.
We keep coming back to this training issue.
That said, there are a ton of LEOs that are members of BR&P and many of them do practice regularly. However, these guys are known to be "gun people" who happen to be LEOs.
The above training I mentioned was taught in part by a 30 year veteran LEO who'd been in a few shootings. He said how you shouldn't always believe what every "gun guy" on your department tells you. They'd tell him when it rained to put a lot of oil on his revolver to keep it from rusting. He did, and in his first shooting, he pulled the trigger 5 times and only got two shots off because of all that excess oil fouling 3 of his rounds.
Again, let a story like that get around a gossipy PD..."Those gun guys almost got him killed, don't listen to them."
It's a two way street.