Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 101

Reality Beats Meme

The gun prohibitionists like to paint Federally-licensed firearms dealers as soulless death merchants who wallow in blood to fill their pockets.

Once again, we see the truth is just the opposite.

Thanks to the two blog readers who sent this along!

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Part 6: An Explanation

From the beginning of this blog, I’ve made one entry at a time.  A confluence of scheduling circumstances in coming days demands that if I’m going to get the whole promised series on the PERF recommendations for new police use of force guidelines presented here in a timely manner, I have to dump them all at once.

You will find them immediately below.

Have at it, folks.  Your comments are welcome.

And, please, read the comments from other viewers. In my “day jobs,” I’ve found truth in the old lawyers’ saying that “In the Halls of Justice, most of the justice is in the halls.”  I’ve likewise found that in the halls of training, much of the training is in the halls.  I’ve been to courses where I learned more from the other students than from the designated instructors.

Similarly, in the “bogs of blogs” some of the best learning and discussion points are found in the reader commentary.

Do not lose sight of the fact that if unrealistic expectations are morphed into police use of force standards, we can expect the same unrealistic demands to be made on armed citizens protecting themselves and their loved ones.

Oh, and did I mention that all opinions I’ve expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the policies of any organization, agency, or entity I have served with past or present?

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Part 5: The PERF-etrators

When I first saw the Police Executive Research Forum’s “30 Guiding Principles” in their “Use of Force: Taking Policing to a Higher Standard,” I showed it to my significant other. She’s not LE herself, but hangs out with enough law enforcement personnel to have a good idea how things work. After reading it, she shook her head sadly and said, “Who PERF-etrated this?”

The answer, according to PERF itself, is “Approximately 200 police chiefs and other police officials from various ranks, along with federal officials, academics, and mental health experts.” How significant that one category is missing from that mix: police instructors in the law and practice of judicious use of force. IALEFI, the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors and ILEETA, the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, would undoubtedly have been happy to help research and explain things, Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that either was contacted.

I thought the single most egregious of their 30 points was Policy 3: “Police use of force must meet the test of proportionality.” (Emphasis PERF’s.) That sounds reasonable enough until you read the fine print: “In assessing whether a response is proportional, officers must ask themselves, ‘How would the general public view the action we took? Would they think it was appropriate to the entire situation and to the severity of the threat posed to me or to the public?’”

What? What? Should life or death decision guidelines be made by people with hashtag agendas who can’t seem to distinguish murder from justifiable homicide? The sort of people who create “hands up, don’t shoot” memes when hands weren’t up and “don’t shoot” wasn’t uttered? People who expect cops to risk fatal stab wounds (to themselves, and to others) because someone who doesn’t understand weapons doesn’t realize that within its range a knife can be as or more deadly than a police duty gun?  We don’t let cultists and faith healers determine medical treatment protocols.  We shouldn’t let people who replace scientifically-determined reality with fantasized memes be the arbiters of justifiable protective use of force.

IACP (the International Association of Chiefs of Police, i.e., “management”) and FOP (the Fraternal Order of Police, i.e., “labor”) have taken the unprecedented step of joining together to refute and challenge the PERF guidelines.  There is a clue, there.

An organization that calls itself a “research forum” should, one would think, put forth some research.  The PERF 30 document under discussion contains exactly one footnote…citing another PERF paper.   Instead, the report speaks glowingly of Scottish police training to deal with knife-wielders without deploying firearms, ignoring the facts that (A) the desperate constables have to do it that way because the vast majority are not allowed to carry firearms, and (B) their training explains to them at the outset that they can expect to be slashed or stabbed while trying to subdue blade-wielders without using guns.

Instead of letting the misperceptions of the uninformed (or agenda-motivated) elements of the public become the landmark for guidelines, PERF might have found room for one more recommended policy: Educating that public on the realities of police use of force. Sadly, that much needed element appears to be totally lacking from their recommendations.

As I close, let me state again that all the opinions I have expressed on this topic are my personal opinions, not necessarily those of any agency or organization which I serve.

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Part 4: PERFidy?

Some of PERF’s recommended policies are downright dangerous to police, and to the law-abiding citizens they are sworn to protect. Consider Policy 8: “Shooting at vehicles must be strictly prohibited. [PERF’s emphasis.] Agencies should adopt a strict prohibition against shooting at or from a moving vehicle unless someone in the vehicle is using or threatening deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself.” Did those who wrote that ever see what an automobile does to an unprotected human body? Perhaps instead of visiting the UK, they should have gone to Graz, Austria and talked to the cops who responded there last year to a rundown spree that killed three victims and injured another 34. Or the officers who investigated the narcissistic killing spree of Eliot Rodger in California, who used his automobile as a deadly weapon itself, as well as his guns and contact weapons, and was only stopped when he met with police gunfire and committed suicide.

Or Policy 16: “Use Distance, cover and Time to replace outdated concepts such as the ’21-foot rule’ and ‘drawing a line in the sand.” What? Dennis Tueller’s classic drill from 21 feet simply shows that the average adult male can close that distance from a standing start and inflict a fatal stab wound in 1.5 seconds, one of the most thoroughly verified human dynamics in the field of force science.  The policy goes on to recommend “buy(ing) more time.”  In real world encounters, more time is rarely available for purchase…

Or Policy 9:   “Prohibit use of deadly force against individuals who pose a danger only to themselves.”  Sounds logical until you realize that suicide is inner-directed homicide, which means that the suicidal subject is by definition homicidal…and the impulse can easily outer-direct, with little or no warning. We have to apply the logical, time-proven guidelines of the Supreme Court – objective reasonableness and the totality of the circumstances – which PERF tells us elsewhere in their report are insufficient.

The definition of “perfidy” is betrayal.  Adoption of policies that make a dangerous job more dangerous and make it more difficult to protect innocent victims from homicidal criminals, I think, fits the definition of that term.

I’m far from the only one who thinks so. For other opinions, check the links below, provided by Dave, one of our regular commenters here:

policemag.com

bluesheepdog.com

officer.com

policeone.com

 

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THE PERF 30 AND POLICE USE OF FORCE, Part I

In a recent blog entry I spoke of PERF, the Police Executive Research Forum, and its 30-point recommendation for what some have called “police reform” in regard to use of force. In the reader commentary, I was asked for more specifics, and as usual I said, let’s wait for more info.

We have that now.  It’s time.

For more than the last decade I’ve chaired the Panel of Experts on Firearms and Deadly Force Training for ILEETA, the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, where I’ve also served on the Advisory Board since the organization’s inception. Prior to that, for some years I ran a similar panel for ASLET, the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers, where I proudly served for 19 years as chair of the firearms/deadly force training committee, and also spent several years on that organization’s ethics committee.

For perspective, I believe I’m the only staff writer on Backwoods Home who has worked in law enforcement, which has made me sort of the “resident cop” for that particular organization.

Let me make it clear now that I speak only my own personal opinions in this blog entry and the ones that will follow, and not for any of the above-named organizations, nor for the police department I currently serve, and have proudly served for more than a quarter of a century.

The “PERF 30” has had a profound impact on law enforcement training and management since it came out a short time ago.  Having spent most of a week with some 800 police trainers from around the nation and the world, I’ve seen that impact.  When I ran this week’s Panel of Experts at ILEETA, we began the discussion with the PERF 30, and for the first time in all these years, we never got past that first point of discussion with the Panel and its many attendees.

There was much to discuss there, obviously, and just as obviously, much to discuss here.  Let me say now that I agree with about two-thirds of PERF’s recommendations, and one in particular.  In coming discussions we’ll look at “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”  If you regularly read this blog, you know that one tenet here is the importance of having all the information from both sides before “coming to a verdict.”

Let’s start with a review of PERF’s 30 recommended policy changes.

Please review that.

Please feel free to comment here.

 

Back to you soon with my own commentary…which may take awhile.

 

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A SAD WEEK

It has been a tough week for shooters and the friends and followers of two handgun greats.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday last, Todd Louis Green passed away after a very long – and very valiant – battle with cancer. Only 45, Todd was one of the brightest and fastest-rising stars in the firearms training world until he had to turn his attention to fighting his disease, a battle that included successful advocacy for cancer treatment research on multiple fronts.

Todd was a skillful instructor and excellent diagnostician, who never patronized his students. He was also constantly testing new things, whether guns or techniques.  High volume endurance tests on handguns, for example. Todd was a big advocate of AIWB (appendix inside the waistband) concealed carry, and a few years ago I watched him (minus a kidney recently lost to cancer) outshoot us all at the Polite Society Match (in Tulsa that year at the US Shooting Academy) with a double action HK .45 drawn from that type of concealment. Equally comfortable with Glocks and 1911s, Todd was a strong advocate of double action semiautomatic pistols for practical street reasons that went beyond mere “shootability.” He was also an “industry insider,” having worked for both Beretta and SIG, and was happy to share his knowledge with the shooting public.

When radical cancer surgery took substantial bone out of his gun arm, Todd made lemonade out of the lemons by using it as an opportunity to study what it felt like to be a new shooter or a handicapped shooter, knowledge he shared with those who followed his excellent posts, archived at the forum he created “where professionals go,” pistol-training.com.  It remains a treasure trove of knowledge and a monument to Todd’s approach. He will be greatly missed.

In close proximity to Todd’s death came news that Walt Rauch had suffered a serious stroke. Walt is one of the grand old men of tactical handgunning: one of the originators of the famed National Tactical Invitational, a co-architect of the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA), and a strong supporter of the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC). His career took him from the US Secret Service to the Philadelphia Warrant Squad, where he became the man I described decades ago in my book “The Truth About Self-Protection” as a legal burglar, empowered by warrant to enter homes to take dangerous men into custody. He did it in a day when such entries were made not by heavily armed and armored SWAT teams but by a couple of detectives in suits with department-issue snub-nose .38 revolvers. What Walt learned and shared with the rest of us – in lecture, and in his many articles in magazines like Combat Handguns and Handguns –  made us all safer.

Your thoughts and prayers for Walt’s recovery, and for Todd and his survivors, would be greatly appreciated. Donations may be made in Todd’s memory to Rampage For The Cure!

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INTERESTING WEEK SO FAR

Spent the last Friday through Sunday at the Rangemaster Tactical Conference hosted by Tom and Lynn Givens at the Memphis, Tennessee Police Academy. Over 200 students and dozens of designated instructors, all of us in the latter category being students too, of course.  Tom brings in “the best of the best,” and the course is open to armed citizens, not just police and military, though of course all three groups are present.

A truly great seminar. Next year’s has not yet been scheduled for multiple logistical reasons, but stay tuned and keep an eye on the rangemaster.com website.  It’s the best bang for the buck a private citizen can get in armed self-defense training.

A part of the program is the Polite Society Match. Essentially, it’s Tom Givens’ RangeMaster qualification course of fire.  158 of the attendees and instructors participated. I was grateful to claw my way into the top ten overall by the skin of my teeth, and came in fourth in the Lawman division, while my sweetie the Evil Princess came in third among the 40 or so females.  Congratulations to overall winner Kirk Clark, top cop John Hearne (a past overall winner!), and high woman Cindy Bowser.

You learn from your mistakes. I managed to get a 100% score on the targets with my Wilson Custom Beretta 92 Compact Carry pistol, but shot it too damn slow.  (Note to self: next year, get some trigger time in the live fire courses before you shoot the match, to get warmed up and grooved in.)

Hit Chicagoland on Monday for the annual International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers conference, arriving in time for the evening session titled “Trainers’ Perspectives on Police Reform,” inspired by the recent PERF (Police Executive Research Forum) guidelines. First off, “Police Reform” is something we normally associate with cleaning up corrupt police departments, and that’s simply not the right terminology for use of force issues. We discussed PERF’s “Are We Guardians or Warriors” meme, my take on which is that cops can’t be one if they aren’t the other. Kinda like the old “Are We Law Enforcers or Peace Officers?”  The simple answer is that we are both. Yin and Yang.

This conference continues through this week. On Wednesday morning I’ll once again chair the Panel of Experts on Deadly Force, and I expect the same issues will dominate.

An interesting week is about to get more interesting, methinks…

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A BREATH OF FRESH AIR FROM HOLLYWOOD

One of my pet peeves (and one of yours, I suspect) is Hollywood Hypocrisy on the gun issue: movie stars who become millionaires by pretending to shoot people to death on-screen in front of our children, and then piously denounce responsible gun owners.

From an always interesting resource, The Firearm Blog, comes this gem. Yes, that’s Keanu Reeves, and damn! – the kid can shoot!

Be sure to follow the links, including the condescending one by an “anti” who seems to be quite miffed that some Hollywood stars have expressed logical opinions on this issue.

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THRESHOLDS

With our fifty-state patchwork quilt of gun laws, it’s often difficult to know where the armed citizen is legal, and where he or she is not.  I constantly check what I consider to be the most up to date sources, handgunlaw.us on the net and the app “Legal Heat.”

If you’re a citizen frustrated by this, you may be comforted to know that off-duty and retired law enforcement officers run into the same sort of issues. When in San Diego last Wednesday, I ran across this in that city’s Union-Tribune newspaper.

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TALLYING FEBRUARY

My January hiatus from teaching (which is not a break from writing, researching, or trial prep) is long over. February turned out to be a good month, albeit a hectic one.

Three classes (Virginia, Alabama, Florida) with well over a hundred students. Managed to sneak in a couple of Glock matches in the latter two states (gssfonline.com), which are serious fun and which you should attend and will almost assuredly enjoy.

On the courthouse side, one deposition taken by plaintiffs’ counsel in a civil lawsuit where I’m speaking for two cops who had to shoot a man who was coming at them with a knife while screaming, “I’ll kill you!” The evidence is on the side for which I’m speaking.  And, a couple of good outcomes.

Early in February, I spoke for a Montana defendant in a murder trial, in which he was accused of what is called “Deliberate Homicide” there because he came home to find his door kicked in and, fearing his wife to be in the house and seeing a large and menacing home invader through the window, grabbed a pistol from his glove box and entered the house. When he confronted the man, who had a long criminal record that included guns and violence which the jury was never allowed to know about under the prevailing rules of evidence, he testified that the intruder came toward him snarling, “I’m going to hurt you!”  As the homeowner raised his 9mm and fired, the man apparently saw the gun coming up and spun sideways, taking the bullet behind lateral midline. It proved fatal.  A prosecutor who had previously testified in the legislature against Castle Doctrine in that state decided he must have shot a helpless fleeing man, ergo the murder charge.  A defense team expertly led by a brilliant attorney named Quentin Reynolds showed the reality to the jury, which deadlocked with 10 jurors for acquittal, and two for conviction. I’m told the two who wanted to convict were swayed by a closing argument by the prosecutor that, in entering his own home to defend his long-time spouse from an obviously dangerous intruder, the defendant had become the “initial aggressor.”  The case was scheduled for hearing on the 25th of February in regard to re-trial, but a couple of days before, the prosecutor apparently saw the handwriting on the wall and dismissed the case.

I had been scheduled to testify in a Florida case in April involving a senior citizen charged with murder for shooting a much larger and younger man who had previously attacked him and crippled him, and was about to do it again. Last Friday, the defendant allowed the public defender to plead him to a lesser charge in return for a sentence of 13 months. Given that the otherwise-clean defendant had used a “sawed off shotgun” below legal length in the incident, which could have brought heavy time in and of itself, I can’t fault him or the public defender for taking the plea bargain.  (Yes, there is a lesson there.)

A bonus on this end is that week of scheduled trial had forced me to postpone a class I had long been wanting to take, Bill Rogers’ Advanced Pistol course, from April into September. Now, it looks as if the Evil Princess and I will be able to do it in April after all.

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