Let me start by quoting from the column "Cop Talk" by Massad Ayoob in the March/April issue of American Handgunner regarding cops competing in IDPA style events:
I believe this is very relevant here. While many on this forum admitted we don't have all of the facts, most folks say they would have held their fire rather than shooting through the closed door (myself among them). I contend that this is because the majority of forum members are above average in terms of their training with firearms and generally would have felt more confident that they could prevail in a gunfight even if they waited to see and confirm their threat before shooting.Massad Ayoob wrote:One of my mentors was Charlie Smith, the ex-FBI instructor who founded the Smith & Wesson Academy. Charlie told us that through his career training other instructors, he always asked them who on their departments were doing the bad shotings, and who were the cool ones who never fired at the wrong moment. He said two profiles emerged. The guy who would panic and fire prematurely was the cop who barely qualified and was uncertain of his skills, and didn't think he could win a gunfight unless he shot preemptively. The guys who would perfectly handle the most difficult situations were the best, most proven shooters. They, Charlie said, had the confidence to wait an extra half a second to be sure they had to shoot.
On the other hand, I suspect that the shooter in the Dallas case was probably in the group of shooters that either barely qualified or rarely practiced (or both) and lacked confidence in his ability to prevail unless he fired pre-emptively before the attacker could see him and have a chance to engage.
What do you think? Does the shooter's level of training affect this type of shoot/no-shoot decision?
So much for practice and training.
