I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who happens to run firearms training for a midwestern state’s police academy. Some time ago, he started having the students shoot Cold Heat as the first drill they do every range session. Around the same time, he mandated a few minutes of dry draw practice every day as part of their homework. He reports that every single student can get one hit on Cold Heat at the end of the academy, with a large percentage getting two hits. A small percentage get more than 2 hits, but most of those shooters came to the academy with solid shooting skills – an infrequent occurrence.
While I think every armed professional should be able to make one hit on Cold Heat, the reality is that many can not. For an entire recruit class to be able to do so, with many scoring two hits, is simply excellent.
My friend believes in teaching them to shoot and win gunfights, rather than teaching to the qualification. Any LE instructor or program that teaches to the qual, is simply doing a disservice to their students and community. I’ve been advocating for real training like this for almost 30 years, but very few LE programs seem capable of hiring, training, and retaining instructors who are capable of this. I’m working on an agency-only initiative to do what I can to change that, but I’m not yet ready to go into details about it. In the meantime, if your agency is interested in a zero-cost improvement in training, let me know.