Developing a Use of Force Education
By: Skip
Gochenour
As a man of
good character, who lawfully carries weapons about in society, you
take seriously the responsibilities to yourself, your family and
your community. As part of that responsibility you have decided to
develop an education experience that will best prepare you to handle
a use of force situation. Very commendable of you!
The next
series of A.T.S.A. Newsletters will discuss the components of you
education. Drawing on the lessons learned at the N.T.I. useful
goals, strategies, school selection and personal development will be
discussed.
From its
inception the N.T.I. has required tacticians who attend to file a
written statement giving specific information about their dynamic
gun handling experience. This requirement serves many purposes. One
of them is to see if there is any correlation between complex
problem solving skills acquired in confrontations and particular
training experience. The N.T.I. has been very fortunate to have
practitioners with exposure to virtually every training facility;
government and private, in this country, as well as schools offered
in several other countries attend. The N.T.I. observes that while
most practitioners have attended multiple schools, that fact alone,
does not determine performance. Evidence of regular personal
training and/or life experience provides a much better format for
complex problem solving in a dynamic environment. Still, much like
any learning process, you must pass through graduated phases.
The goal of
your education process should be layered and branched. The top layer
is to learn those skills that allow you to go through the
requirements of your daily activities with the ability to recognize
developing circumstances that signal the approach of evil. Learn
environmental awareness skills! The determination that you are in a
dangerous situation should branch you into situational analysis!
Your education should have provided you with the ability to
determine the best tactical choice among those available. The first
priority would be to remove yourself from the area if practical to
do so and if it can be done in safety. If it is neither safe nor
practical to remove yourself you will need to branch into your
confrontational analysis skills. Have you learned how to assess a
confrontation in a minute market, when the antagonist is a highly
agitated middle aged white man, who is animated, cursing loudly,
dried flakes of saliva at the corners of his mouth, who has focused
his attentions on the clerk? How about the same location, mid
afternoon, in late June, when three center city tuffs enter the
store together? All wearing hooded sweatshirts with the hoods up,
strings drawn about the head, who split up and go to different
sections of the store. Have you learned what personality
characteristics you have that are likely to provide you with a
better quotient on your survival index? If your instructor told you
to be arrogant and obnoxious, for the confrontations described
above, he has trained you to get killed! Heard anything about
weapons skills so far? The reason is that those skills operate at a
much more fundamental level than the skills mentioned so far. Begin
your layered education with gun handling skills and tactical drills!
Go to school.
Schools
If you carry
weapons, in order to be a responsible member of society you must get
trained. That training begins with the attendance of a well
organized, doctrine driven school. Schools tend to be in two forms,
campus based, and itinerant. Campus based schools include Gunsite
Training Center, Thunder Ranch, Smith & Wesson Academy, Greg
Hamilton's InSights, Tom Given’s Rangemasters, Steve Silverman’s
Firearms Research & Instruction. If you have a badge, Sig Arms
Academy and the H&K School are also available. Each of these schools
will also provide training at selected off campus facilities. John &
Vicki Farnam's D.T.I., and Mas Ayoob's L.F.I. are excellent examples
of itinerant schools. These schools, and others are able to take you
from your current level of competence to any other level of gun
handling that you wish to reach.
