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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