imported post
Bennelli wrote:
I should have asked, "who ever heard of a Semi-Auto 9mm that takes a clip?"
I just read about somesemi-auto training pistols that use "clips".
http://www.standard.net/live/news/180410/
Training Day / ATK system aims to keep Utah officers safe on the job
Charles F. Trentelman
Standard-Examiner staff
SALT LAKE CITY -- Law enforcement officers say a new training system by Alliance Techsystems could save officer lives, but worry about being thwarted by the cost.
That's not an unusual problem, though.
Police officers from several Davis and Weber county agencies said ATK's new system, which uses real guns loaded with special training bullets, costs about the same as existing systems. That means the bullets cost $1 to $2 each.
At that rate, a training scenario that includes firing a 15-round clip gets expensive fast.
After one demonstration Wednesday by ATK that involved an officer firing five rounds at a bad guy, Layton officer Todd Derricks said, "That's one person, one scenario, $5. If your training budget for the year is $5,000, it's gone in one training session."
Still, he and officers from Centerville, Farmington and Clearfield liked what they saw.
"You say it costs a lot, but you've got to realize the training you can get from this scenario-based training you can't get anywhere else. It could save an officer's life," said Bryant Ives, Farmington's investigator and firearms instructor.
ATK's Armament Systems, based in Clearfield, is a subdivision of the same company that makes missile motors west of Brigham City.
On Wednesday, it introduced a new product called the Force-on-Force training system it is marketing to police departments.
It's based around a newly developed plastic slug full of colored liquid, sort of like a paintball, but the system also includes a wide variety of protective gear, adaptors for numerous guns, even portable buildings for officers to construct real-life scenarios in which to train.
Randy Clifton, ATK's Force-on-Force product line manager and a former member of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, said reality in training is what's the most critical.
Officers who now train with paper targets or paint guns are training themselves to do the wrong thing in an emergency, he said.
For example, Clifton said he has seen officers who trained by loading only four rounds into their guns to save money quit firing after four rounds in a real situation, even though they had more shots.
"There's been an FBI officer who was shot picking up his brass," or spent shell casings, because that's what he did in training, Clifton said.
He also said an Indiana officer was killed in a shootout when he fumbled trying to cock his gun because the gun he was using didn't cock the same way a paintball gun does.
That happens, Clifton said, because in any sort of shooting situation, the officer's mind can go blank and the body goes on autopilot.
National data indicates only one out of five rounds fired by police in live fights hits the target, and 90 percent of those shots are fired from a distance of less than 25 feet, he said.
"Your mind shuts down and goes back to what it was trained to do."
Jack Alexander, the Centerville Police Department firearms instructor, and Centerville Sgt. Von Steenblik said they like the system precisely because of that realism.
Alexander said he's worried that his department could not buy it, though.
Steenblik agreed, saying, "The biggest issue is the expense of the course. Davis County is made up of a lot of small departments," none of which, individually, could afford such a system, he said.
"You start adding it all together, it's hard for a department like ours."
He did confirm that how you are trained can cause you trouble, though.
"We challenged a neighboring agency, which shall remain unnamed," he said, smiling, and the officers in that department were trained so that, after they had fired all their rounds, they took the magazine out of their pistol, put it in their pocket and installed a full one.
In real-life situations, of course, they are supposed to just let it fall on the ground to save reloading time.
"They just couldn't keep up," Steenblik said. "You gotta train like real life."
Bad training has costs, both in lives and in money, several ATK representatives said, and the officers agreed.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said realistic training can significantly reduce the liability that a police department faces in any shooting incident.
"If you can go in and say your officers had this kind of reality training, the liability reduction on this is immeasurable."
