Ten Years Of Licensed CCW In Oklahoma: More than 54,000 Oklahomans are
licensed to carry concealed handguns under the Oklahoma Self-Defense
Act, said Jessica Brown, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of
Investigation. That number is up from around 31,000 in 2000 and 15,081
in 1996, after the first year of licensing. Once approved, applicants
are licensed to carry concealed weapons for five years. After five
years, they are required to renew their application. In the beginning,
some people thought a wave of shootings by license holders would occur,
but those fears have proved to be unfounded, Brown said.
http://tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070701_238_A1_hTeny75637
---
Fort Bragg Wives Arm As Husbands Deploy: ...She said when she and her
husband, who are both new to the area, learned he may be deployed soon,
they decided it might be time to brush up on those childhood lessons and
look into owning a gun...Barr said he has seen a significant increase in
handgun sales to women since Fort Bragg deployments have increased.
http://fayobserver.com/article?id=266244
---
Interesting Warning-Shot Case: I generally counsel against "warning
shots." A Tucson man has been convicted of second-degree murder in the
fatal shooting of a homeowner, whose yard he had entered. The homeowner
was shot after he went out to his yard with a pistol and fired a warning
shot. The apparent burglar unsuccessfully claimed self-defense. Had
deadly force been warranted, the homeowner should have shot the
intruder, not provoked return fire with a ""warning shot."
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/56168.php
---
Open-Carry Issues In Virginia: While I feel that concealed carry is
generally a wiser tactical choice than open carry for private citizens,
I applaud the response to the illegal activities of the Alexandria
police. Note that Virginia law mandates open carry where alcohol is served.
http://opencarry.mywowbb.com/view_topic.php?id=3293&forum_id=54&jump_to=46858
---
From GOA: If you ever wondered whether your activism pays off, then
look no further than the immigration debate. The bill went down in
flames yesterday by a vote of 53-46. And good thing too, because this
bill was packing more than just immigration stuff - it also contained
anti-gun language as well...But remember the Baucus amendment that we
asked you to lobby on? The Senate voted on whether to table (or kill)
that amendment on Wednesday, but it failed to do so. That one amendment
is being credited by insiders as being THE BIGGEST reason the bill could
not get enough votes for cloture (that is, to end debate and vote up or
down on the bill)...
http://www.gunowners.org/a062907.htm
---
From Force Science Research Center:
What promotes peak performance in lethal-force conflicts?
Part 2 of 2
Force Science News #75
June 26, 2007
======
[Note: In Part 1 of this series, sent 6/18/07, we reported results of an
important new study about LEOs and the use of deadly force, conducted by
Dr. Darrell Ross, chairman of the Dept. of Law Enforcement and Justice
Administration at Western Illinois University, who presented his
findings at the 2007 ILEETA training conference.
[Ross meticulously analyzed 86 high-profile police-suspect
confrontations about which federal lawsuits were filed, alleging
excessive force and civil rights violations. He was involved in all as
an expert witness for officers and their departments.]
The cops in Ross' study--121 male officers, mostly patrolmen, from 94
agencies scattered across the U.S.--compiled an enviable record. While
suspects were killed in 97% of these controversial confrontations, all
the involved officers survived. And of the ensuing civil suits that
actually advanced to a courtroom resolution (86%), all the officers and
their departments prevailed, either through summary judgments or trial
verdicts.
Despite being under extraordinary stress in complex circumstances, the
officers' decision-making and physical responses were expert enough not
only to save their lives but to successfully withstand legal challenges
as well. "That's all we can ask of any officer in any lethal-force
situation," Ross says.
In almost all cases the shooting was the officers' first. What guided
them toward peak performances their first time out?
In his ILEETA presentation and during interviews with Force Science
News, Ross identified certain essential skills these officers brought to
their decision-making, and he described the type of training he believes
best builds these strengths.
Under ideal circumstances, Ross explains, decision-making is a
deliberative process that follows "schematic, sequentially ordered
steps." There's time to conjure and evaluate options, to weigh relative
risks and potential benefits, perhaps even to field-test possibilities.
In academic circles, this is called the "rational analysis" model.
Cops rarely have that luxury, certainly not in most lethal-force
confrontations. These events, like the ones Ross studied, are typically
volatile, rapidly evolving, chaotic, and unpredictable, with maximum
stress and minimal hard data informing them. "Reaction time is at a
premium for officers," he says.
In such situations, "there is no 'decision tree,' as in the rational
analysis model," Ross says. Decisions tend to be made according to a
"recognition-primed" model. That is, you quickly "read" what you're
dealing with on the basis of certain cues and patterns that seem
familiar from past training and experience and you choose a course of
action based on what those indicators seem reasonably to be predicting.
"The decision may still be rational and logical, but it's not reached
through a rational sequence."
The officers Ross studied possessed certain qualities that aided their
decision-making under real-world pressures. "In sports terminology, they
were good examples of 'reading the play.'" Among other things, Ross
says, they tended to:
--formulate flexible anticipations. "En route to the scene, these
officers usually began constructing an impression of what they'd be
encountering. They generally had some limited information from dispatch.
Often they'd been to the location before or knew some of the history of
the people they were responding to."
More than 1/3 of the officers had formal training in mental imagery, and
many others practiced it on their own. "A number of the officers said
they had mentally rehearsed being in the kind of situation they ended up
in," Ross says. "This mentally prepared them to recognize danger cues."
Yet they managed to stay open-minded, not locked in to their initial
expectations in case things proved different, which they did in "a
significant percentage of cases." The officers proved adept at what Ross
calls "transitional force decision-making;" that is, adjusting quickly
to new tactics and responses with shifts in the circumstances. Such
situational changes often abruptly escalated an encounter from a
seemingly nonviolent episode to a lethal force crisis.
"Anticipation is a forerunner of perception," Ross says. It can be
helpful in "interpreting environmental cues and patterns" and can assist
in "processing the situation and selecting options. It tends to bring
your body and mind into unison."
--have a heightened sense of "situational awareness." The officers were
keenly attuned to potential danger signals from subjects and from the
surrounding environment. "They were particularly aware visually." More
than half had received specialized training in reading body language,
and they were cognizant of facial gestures, body positioning, upper-body
movements, hand actions, and other suspect behavior that could signal a
pending attack, given the circumstances.
"Contextually," Ross says, "each incident studied involved sensory
factors, cognitive factors, physiological factors, and emotional
factors. The officers displayed a quickness of mind and body in
processing all of these."
More than half the officers (55%) had unholstered their sidearm prior to
making the final decision to shoot, indicating that they had "picked up
on some indication that something was wrong" and were preparing
themselves to counter it, Ross says. In the end, he says, about 80% of
the sensory input that actually influenced perception and
decision-making was visual.
--screen out distractions. "These officers could multi-task well under
time pressure. They could scan the environment, observe the suspect and
their partner, use the radio, give verbal commands, listen to what was
said, yet still focus sharply when threats or potential threats arose.
They were good at screening out 'visual noise,' irrelevant peripheral
distractions. This is difficult, because the more distractions you have,
the less likely you are to see everything and key on what's important."
--draw reasonable inferences quickly. The officers usually had little
time to "organize and interpret their sensory input" and conclude that
the time had come to use lethal force. Contact with suspects before
shooting occurred lasted from 5 to 10 minutes in 4 out of 10 of the
cases studied; some lasted up to half an hour. Nearly half the officers
at least had time to give 3 or more commands. Yet when the suspect
actually presented what was perceived as a deadly threat, 95% of the
officers had less than 2 seconds to react; 70% had less than a second,
Ross discovered.
--act emphatically. "They didn't freeze up," Ross says. "There was no
'paralysis of analysis.' These officers were able to accurately assess
the dynamics of the situation, to appropriately integrate anticipation
with ultimate perception, to detect and recognize behavioral cues and
patterns in the context of the environment and circumstance, and to
choose a course of action under time pressure in harmony with what was
happening."
--articulate well. In their reports and statements afterwards, "they
were able to explain how circumstances, the environment, and what they
observed and processed cognitively about the suspect's behavior added up
to the perception that led to their decision to use lethal force."
Even in cases where their perceptions turned out to be wrong (about 1/3
of the dead suspects were found not to have a weapon, for example), an
objective observer could understand the officers' thinking process and
appreciate the reasonableness of their inferences, Ross says.
Undergirding the officers' admirable handling of the confrontations,
Ross believes, was a dual foundation of experience and training.
Although the overwhelming majority had never before used deadly force on
duty, their average tenure on the street was 11 years. "They were not
neophytes" at reading people, places, and circumstances.
Moreover, their agencies valued training. More than 1/3 of the officers
received firearms training beyond mere qualification at least once a
month. At least 75% said their training incorporated instinct shooting,
scenario-based decision-making, the use of Simunitions and FATS-like
technology, night-time drills, and other elements of modernized
instruction and street preparation.
"If you want to achieve proficiency and continue to make progress in a
skill, you have to train and practice in an environment where you are
required to use that skill," Ross says. To develop acute skill in
lethal-force decision-making and delivery, he suggests the following,
based on his findings:
1. Train with interactive scenarios that force you to recognize
danger cues and human behavior patterns and solve confrontational
problems quickly under stress. "This is the heart of excellent
decision-making," Ross says. The scenarios should reflect the
environments and the circumstances you customarily encounter on the job.
Consider constructing exercises based on cases that have actually
occurred in your agency for particular impact.
2. Be sure to include scenarios that involve transitional-force
decision-making and the need to stay focused despite distractions, 2
problems you are almost certain to encounter in a deadly force showdown.
3. Either in-house or through outside sources, obtain specialized
training in mental imagery and body language.
4. Videotape all training exercises. Videos should be constructively
debriefed so officers can see the good and bad of their performance,
which they may not be aware of during the action. They should redo
exercises as necessary, so they leave training having won all their
encounters. "If they can't win in training, how are they going to win on
the street when it's for real?" No-win scenarios that serve only to
humiliate or terrify officers have no place in modern training.
5. Training should be frequent. "Training once a year is not a viable
mode of learning," Ross says. "You need to keep your mind in a constant
state of learning to build expertise. The human brain needs on-going
'upgrades' to keep it fresh and stimulated. Otherwise, it becomes stagnant.
"Administrators often have no problem assigning SWAT-team members to
12 or 16 hours of training every month. Patrol officers need and deserve
the same level of training as special ops groups. There's an obligation
to the community to have them performing at peak proficiency. In 2007,
administrators have to find viable ways of providing relevant training
to all officers. They can't just throw up their hands and put their head
in the sand."
6. For motivation, ideas, and practical guidance in developing
meaningful preparation for the street, read "Training at the Speed of
Life: The Definitive Textbook for Military and Law Enforcement
Reality-based Training," by Ken Murray, a technical advisor to the Force
Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato.
Ross would like to see his study stimulate more research is certain
areas--deeper explorations of the psychology of anticipation and
perception, contextual cue recognition, scan patterns, and the
management of visual noise, for example.
Actually, those are some of the exact areas that the Force Science
Research Center is exploring with projects that either are underway or
will be as pending funds become available, according to executive
director Dr. Bill Lewinski.
We'll keep you posted on these and other developments as results become
available.
================
The Force Science News is provided by The Force Science Research Center,
a non-profit institution based at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Subscriptions are free and sent via e-mail. To register for your free,
direct-delivery subscription, please visit www.forcesciencenews.com and
click on the registration button.
(c) 2007: Force Science Research Center, www.forcescience.org. Reprints
allowed by request. For reprint clearance, please e-mail:
[email protected]. FORCE SCIENCE is a registered trademark of
The Force Science Research Center, a non-profit organization based at
Minnesota State University, Mankato.
---
From John Farnam:
27 June 07
Airguns are toys? This from a friend with LAPD:
"A two-month-old infant was shot to death when her juvenile 'uncle'
negligently discharged an airgun last Monday. The young man was sitting
on a porch carelessly fumbling with a pellet rifle. His sister, who was
carrying his two-month old niece, was walking toward him when the pellet
gun discharged and struck the baby. The two-month-old subsequently died
from her injuries at the hospital.
Idiot was, of course, suspect was taken into custody. There is no
suggestion that the shooting was anything but an accident."
Comment: Airguns are eminently capable of inflicting serious, even
fatal, injuries! Careless gun handling is as contemptible with airguns
as it is with any gun. Careless gun handling is a remorseless and
ruthless assassin! See that you're never guilty of it, no matter what
kind of "gun" you're handling!
/John
(Elmer Keith was very clear that he hated toy guns, particularly cap
pistols, because they encourage unsafe gun handling. Better to train
kids to handle real guns, including airguns, safely.)
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
