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Article: 08-2006
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,