While Skeld's comments are the dream of anyone involved in In-Service LEO training, they are a few speed bumps.
Manufacturers will bend over backwards to make a sale, but they want to do it at top dollar. However, coop purchasing is already in effect in some areas. I ran the Patrol Division for a fairly large NJ department and we purchased from vendors holding a NJ State contract. That meant I didn't have to put out bids and the prices was great. As of a year ago, 1000 rounds of Winchester 9mm FMJ training ammo was $115 and 40S&W wasn’t much more. The great part about it was they could and did offer the pricing to state and municipal employees. Almost any item needed to run a department was available through this process.
While it is easy to say I want to expand training, where do you find the time? Firearms fights with every other mandated training subject for training time. Domestic Violence, Use of Force, Pursuit Policy, Chemical Spray, Harassment, Incident Command, Breathalyzer, Radar and others. Many of these subjects are more than eight hours each. When it comes to the town’s way of thinking, the chance of a employee using a firearm is much less than an employee getting involved in a Domestic Violence or High Speed Pursuit.
Our local gun club was the site of our training for over forty years and could not have been more cooperative to our department. In fact, it was at that club that I first learned to shoot, compliments of the DCM…But that club is gone, as are so many others on the east coast. So now you have to add travel time to the mix. As far as holding training sessions on the officer’s free time, no good. That is a violation of Federal law. No one can be asked to work for free, even if they desire to do it. If the agency sponsors it, they must pay overtime.
Our state had a procedure to follow for any non-qualifying employees but what do you do when one doesn’t qualify? It may become an issue for the pension board because if it can be traced to any physical ailment, the employee would be entitled to a pension. And that would only be after many rounds with the legal staff of the town, state and agency employee union.
Out of my 74 officers, maybe four or five actually had any interest in firearms. They have lives to lead and don’t work the scheduling that makes it easy to maintain a decent family life. Added to that is the fact that many work second jobs and very little time is left over so unless it was an interest beforehand, you aren’t going to see any added effort on their part.