Armed Citizen vs. LEO Proficiencies

Disclaimer: This is not, repeat NOT, an attempt to cop-bash or to solicit cop-bashing.

After having read the account of the shooting (several different sources) of the police shooting in NYC and having read several other accounts of police firing their weapons and either not hitting their intended target or hitting one or more innocent bystanders, I am beginning to question who is better trained to use deadly force.

It appears to me, judging by the people I know (and not including myself), that most responsible armed citizens put in much more range time and expend far more ammunition than do the majority of police officers. Again, this is my perception and may, or may not, be accurate.

I would like to hear responses from as many as possible on this and especially from different regions of the country. FWIW, I sincerely hope my perception is wrong, but I haven't been able to find enough information to really form a different opinion.

Context Not Training

I don't believe the issue is training I believe it is one of environment. The typical armed citizen encounter is between 2, or more, persons in very close proximity to eachother. ID'ing the BG while happening quickly it certainly is positive. In other words the person threatening you is typically ID'ing themselves through thier actions and is usually within 7 feet of you. No need to take much account of environment, no time or room. Just shoot the bastard in front of you.

The typical police encounter involves arriving into mayhem in progress. multiple People running, screaming, perhaps shoots being fired. They must ID the BG(s), take cover, assess the surounding area and return fire (while not hitting the bystanders). Wow, pretty tought circumstances.

I was shooting at a local range when two officers arrived for some target practice. (they had mistaken me for an officer )

Anywho - they were god awful... This doesn't effect my perception of all officers, just because these two were bad. What purpose would the poll on this thread serve? A couple of shmucks on an internet forum aren't going to be able to decide how proficient officers are at shooting compared to them. Of course everyone is going to give them a 1/10.

hey a least they were praticing

I don't believe this poll has much to do with target practice.

I took it as an over all. They use their firearms much more than what is really required. Since they have no liability when they cause death and destruction they don't seem to care as much.

Cops will take shots that most of us would not waste ammo on. 3 shots into a dog when the cop has no legal business there....
One into a woman who surprised them on her back porch. Too man into man who pull out a wallet in NY.......

It would be interesting to check their trigger control vs an armed citizen's trigger control on the same course.

Five votes for "sadly lacking?" Really?

Our officers here in the Springs get biannual training including both at the firing range as well as in a very cool computerized scenario lab. I WISH my own training was as good as theirs.

On the flip side, I believe the single-most important factor is that LEOs are taught to wade in and engage, whereas we're taught to disengage when possible. That explains their higher rate of wrongful death shooting more than how much practice they get on the range.

since9 said:

Five votes for "sadly lacking?" Really?

Our officers here in the Springs get biannual training including both at the firing range as well as in a very cool computerized scenario lab. I WISH my own training was as good as theirs.

On the flip side, I believe the single-most important factor is that LEOs are taught to wade in and engage, whereas we're taught to disengage when possible. That explains their higher rate of wrongful death shooting more than how much practice they get on the range.

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Practice does not count. IIRC the saying correctly, only perfect practice makes perfect performance.

Cops should be at least as good as (to pick some arbitrary standard) the folks at the bottom of the top quarter of the average local practical shooting group/club. Engaging as opposed to disengaging has nothing to do with proficiency with your tool, whether it be some Tupperwear Wonder-9 or a Stradivarius violin. It has everything to do with needing to be able to decide that since you do not have a safe shot the notion of "suppressive fire" might also be unsafe. Wading in lessens the distance to the target, which also means the angle to the target is sharper. Those factors should result in smaller misses - if you were sufficiently proficient in unaimed stress shooting. But the firing range usually does not support/allow that sort of training. Computerized scenario labs may allow for/support that but how many scenarios are set up to elicit those real-world responses?

To close - if the cops in The Springs can engage i the sort of training you describe, and achieve the sort of results I have arbitrarily set up, then why are the rest of the law enforcement agencies not doing the same? In most of the country east of the Mississippi pooling funds and sharing the equipment is feasable. Get west of the Sierrias and again it should be fairly easy. That leaves the middle of the country to figure out. Regional centers and creative sharing of personnel to cover those away at training might be possible. (See, if I can think of some workable solutions surely those behind the big desks should be able to do so.)

stay safe.

If there is one thing I have come to believe from all the time I've spent studying cop shooting dash cam/security cam footage, it's that different PD's have different protocols for shooting. What's more, few like to talk about their shooting methods of choice publicly, so you'd never really know unless you FOIA'd it.

Taking a look at the NYPD specifically, I read that in decades past they issued double barrel shotguns because many of their cops couldn't remember where the slide release was located on a pump. Gotta wonder how much has changed for them between then and now.

Qualifying once a month at a stationary target, after having coffee and donuts, is not training. Stress training and night shooting should be requirements. Training does not always relate to live fire either, situational training should be done at least once a month.

Unfortunately depts rely on spec units, but they cannot be everywhere, but they get the best training while the street cop is ignored.

What ones has to do is compare apples to apples.

Compareing the avg LEO shooter to the avg non LEO shooter.

Compareing the good LEO shooters to the avg non LEO good shooters

Compareing the great LEO shooters to avg non LEO great the shooters.

I don't think one will see much differants in results.

90 percent of LEOs and regular shooters don't paractice and are not very good shots. They handle there guns only when they have to.

About 7 percent of LEOs and good shooters paractice some what more and are fairly good shots.

About 3 percent of LEOs and non LEO shooters shoot a lot and are very good to great shots

I seen a lot of avg LEO shooters and non LEO avg shooters that don't shoot fairly well.

I seen a fair number of the 7 percenters in both.

I seen the 3 percenters in both.

We GUN people seem to think very body should have the time money and will power to shoot and become great shots.

Unless as a LEO you are on SWAT or the pistol team if your dept has one. You have to spend your own time and money to become a great shot. Most Departments just don't hand out unlimited ammo and paid range time. It is a money thing.

Departments are more then willing just to have you meet the min. standards what ever they are. Most LEOs are more then happy to just meet them. Just like most non LEOs are more then happy just to shoot every little.

In a perfect world all LEOs would be and non LEOs shooters would be great shots but we don't live in a perfect world.

Ammo and training are allot cheaper than paying multimillion dollar settlements.

WalkingWolf said:

Ammo and training are allot cheaper than paying multimillion dollar settlements.

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Try telling that to management. I have.

They are all then more willing to play the odds.

A 10000 man department and extra 500 dollars per week to bring them up to being great shots. = 5000000 dollars.

Yea it takes a lot of range time and ammo = a lot of money.

Every hr on the range/training is one less hr patroling,investigateing ect. do you cover those hrs with some one else or do you leave them go uncovered.

Are the tax payers willing to come up with it. Most complain about the pay package now.

Firearms Iinstuctor said:

Try telling that to management. I have.

They are all then more willing to play the odds.

A 10000 man department and extra 500 dollars per week to bring them up to being great shots. = 5000000 dollars.

Yea it takes a lot of range time and ammo = a lot of money.

Every hr on the range/training is one less hr patroling,investigateing ect. do you cover those hrs with some one else or do you leave them go uncovered.

Are the tax payers willing to come up with it. Most complain about the pay package now.

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I don't think it would be that expensive.

Stress/reaction training does not need to be live fire training, in fact it probably is better if it is not. The problem is not the officers accuracy, it is how they react to stress(keeping a level head). This means putting the officers in controlled stressful training. This is more like the training the fire dept gives to recruits. Regular physical fitness training should also be a part of every dept, especially a dept like NYPD.

Firearms Iinstuctor said:

What ones has to do is compare apples to apples.

Compareing the avg LEO shooter to the avg non LEO shooter.

Compareing the good LEO shooters to the avg non LEO good shooters

Compareing the great LEO shooters to avg non LEO great the shooters.

I don't think one will see much differants in results.

90 percent of LEOs and regular shooters don't paractice and are not very good shots. They handle there guns only when they have to.

About 7 percent of LEOs and good shooters paractice some what more and are fairly good shots.

About 3 percent of LEOs and non LEO shooters shoot a lot and are very good to great shots

I seen a lot of avg LEO shooters and non LEO avg shooters that don't shoot fairly well.

I seen a fair number of the 7 percenters in both.

I seen the 3 percenters in both.

We GUN people seem to think very body should have the time money and will power to shoot and become great shots.

Unless as a LEO you are on SWAT or the pistol team if your dept has one. You have to spend your own time and money to become a great shot. Most Departments just don't hand out unlimited ammo and paid range time. It is a money thing.

Departments are more then willing just to have you meet the min. standards what ever they are. Most LEOs are more then happy to just meet them. Just like most non LEOs are more then happy just to shoot every little.

In a perfect world all LEOs would be and non LEOs shooters would be great shots but we don't live in a perfect world.

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But the thing is, if this was the case why do only 2% of regular citizen shoots end in bystanders getting hit, but 11% of police shootings end in bystanders getting hurt? If the training/accuracy is roughly the same across both groups then there shouldn't be an almost 600% rise in the chances of a bystander getting shot if it's the police doing the shooting compared to a regular citizen.

It would also help if NYPD cops didn't have ridiculous "NY triggers." What are they something like 12 pounds? Where has this gotten them? Are there documented cases of the extra trigger weight being beneficial to a jittery cop?

Aknazer said:

But the thing is, if this was the case why do only 2% of regular citizen shoots end in bystanders getting hit, but 11% of police shootings end in bystanders getting hurt? If the training/accuracy is roughly the same across both groups then there shouldn't be an almost 600% rise in the chances of a bystander getting shot if it's the police doing the shooting compared to a regular citizen.

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A large percentage of citizen shootings are not in public many are in the home. Less people around less chance of others getting hit.

I really don't think the hit ratio in citizen shooting is that much differant. Citizens miss a lot also it just that there normally is less people around.

There is differant dynamic between most police shootings and citizen shooting. Citizens just don't go running down the street trying to catch someone who just got done killing some one else.

When a citizen shoots he knows who the bad guy is off the bat.

The police have to figure it out when they get there.

Just a lot of differant dynamics between police shootings and citizen shooting.

SovereignAxe said:

It would also help if NYPD cops didn't have ridiculous "NY triggers." What are they something like 12 pounds? Where has this gotten them? Are there documented cases of the extra trigger weight being beneficial to a jittery cop?

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I don't consider 12 pounds that bad, maybe my fingers are stronger. I have a PA63, Russian guns are built with heavy trigger pulls on purpose. I killed a charging pit bull with it. Not one missed shot, NYPD problem is training. One officer lost his cool, and fired indiscriminately while running away, the other officer could be clearly seen hitting his mark, at point blank range.

The officer that probably shot most if not all of the bystanders should have either took aim, or run, but not shooting wild west style while running away. I will be interested if they disclose the ballistic reports, I would be willing to bet that all the bystanders injuries came from one gun.

since9 said:

Five votes for "sadly lacking?" Really?

Our officers here in the Springs get biannual training including both at the firing range as well as in a very cool computerized scenario lab. I WISH my own training was as good as theirs.

On the flip side, I believe the single-most important factor is that LEOs are taught to wade in and engage, whereas we're taught to disengage when possible. That explains their higher rate of wrongful death shooting more than how much practice they get on the range.

Click to expand...

there is something to be said about this. how many LEO, know that they are justified in a shooting be fore they even engage, and the fact that they do not have to worry about bystanders

there is a lot of spray and pray in LE. how accountable would they actually be held (in general terms), if a bystander gets hit.

papa bear said:

there is something to be said about this. how many LEO, know that they are justified in a shooting be fore they even engage, and the fact that they do not have to worry about bystanders

there is a lot of spray and pray in LE. how accountable would they actually be held (in general terms), if a bystander gets hit.

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How accountable they are depends a lot on the state law where they are working. 50 states 50 laws and it depends on each case and each situation. The greater the danger to the public stopping a mass murderer is more important then stopping a shop lifter that is threating the officer with a knife.

The officer most likely would get more of a break in hitting a bystander stopping someone murdering others, then hitting a bystander shooting at the shoplifter just threating the officer to every thing in between.

Yes it would be nice if every officer was a great shot and very tactical. Officers are human its a job a lot of departments just require the min in firearms training. Some are openly anti gun.

The truth is a very large percentage of officers never fire their weapons in anger.


Training costs lots of money every dept has only so much to spend. Every dept head has their hands out to get their share.

Most officers don't go around saying heck if I get into a gun fight Iam going to see how many bystanders I can get.

Most dread dealing with a good shooting let alone one that the wrong people get shot.


There are a lot of things that can help you survive,training, competition, personal experience. They all come into play but none of them are the same (unless you been there before)as knowning some one could or is trying to kill you or others in a spilt second if you don't act.

I am sure very one of the complainers on how the officers handled this shooting. Could have would have done a better job and fired less rounds.

If they have survided a personal attack where some one was trying to kill them or do them great harm.

If they have done so doing a better job in a simular situation my hat is off to them.

Aknazer said:

But the thing is, if this was the case why do only 2% of regular citizen shoots end in bystanders getting hit, but 11% of police shootings end in bystanders getting hurt?

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We've mentioned this more than once in this thread, including: "I believe the single-most important factor is that LEOs are taught to wade in and engage, whereas we're taught to disengage when possible. That explains their higher rate of wrongful death shooting more than how much practice they get on the range."