The difference between "qualification" and "training"

by Varg Freeborn

7:00am Friday, March 06, 2015

Let’s talk about the difference between “qualification” and “training”. Do you believe that because someone has taken a concealed carry course they are now proficient in employing a weapon safely and effectively in a fast moving deadly confrontation? Or that someone who has hunted and been a recreational shooter all of their life is thereby skillful enough to operate effectively in a gun fight? Do you believe that because a police officer has completed the academy and carries a gun every day in his or her job that they are expert gun handlers and shooters? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, then you have mistaken “qualification” with preparedness and training.

As a society, we are taught from a very young age to achieve nothing more than proficiency and qualification in order to get our reward. All through life, from grade school and into adulthood, it is memorization by rote that wins you grades, status, positions, salaries, authority, etc. Memorize a set of information, perform a mock-up of skills and pass a test; you are now “qualified” and "entitled" to a certain status/paycheck/right. As Paul Howe (U.S. Army Delta Force Ret.) puts it, "Minimums. We have become a society that strives for the minimum standard, and this is how we live our lives."

This method of doing things is so pervasive in our world that most of the public put all of their trust into these resultant qualifications. When we see someone who is licensed or commissioned to do a particular job, we believe that they have been taught the ins and outs of that job and that they have at some point “proven their proficiency” in the job in order to have become officially qualified. Often, we not only trust that they are proficient and qualified, we believe they are experts. I mean, they are licensed or commissioned and have obviously been taught all of the aspects of that job, right?

Unfortunately, qualification by way of proficiency examinations does not make experts. In fact, it doesn’t even weed out the inept. Life is dynamic, demanding and unpredictable. It is a thinking person’s world. Someone can be completely stellar at memorizing information and performing particular movements or operations in a testing environment, yet go on to completely fall apart under the pressure of a real life situation. An officer or concealed carry civilian can be an excellent marksman on the range in front of a static target, yet not be able to hit anything when stress is induced and the blood begins filling with the chemicals of fight or flight. It happens all of the time.

As a defensive firearms instructor, I am an instructor of deadly force; to put it any other way would be a form of denial. Of course, I teach gun safety, general awareness and avoidance. I instruct on ways to deescalate and diffuse a confrontation. But sometimes a situation has to go all the way and there is no safe avenue of escape; it has to be stopped with deadly force. Proper training must ultimately consider this as a final result. Whether it is a civilian looking for defensive concealed carry training, or a law enforcement officer looking to improve his or her skills, the end result is preparation for those worst-case, high-stress, dynamic and unpredictable confrontations.

The problem is that not one common qualification requirement that certifies someone to carry a gun in public ensures that the civilian, or officer, can actually operate the weapon safely or effectively during a dynamic, high-stress, life or death decision making encounter. Even though it is the very reason they will be carrying a gun--to prepare for that eventuality--it simply is not required to be trained for that eventuality. You only need to exhibit safe gun handling and minimal marksmanship under semi-pleasant, controlled conditions on static targets. This is not to say that all concealed carry or law enforcement training is void of any quality training, there are some good instructors on both the civilian and law enforcement sides of the issue. What I am talking about here is the actual requirements for someone to be certified to carry a loaded weapon in public, both civilian and law enforcement. Unfortunately, a lot of CCW and LE instructors alike are programmed to “get you in, done, and out.”

For myself, I look at getting my own training the same way that I look at teaching others: if you are going to spend your time and money doing it, you should get the most out of it. Never seek the path of minimal effort. I don't care how long you have been doing it, or what you think you know, you do not know everything.

In Ohio, where I am located, civilians must complete a 12 hour course on gun safety and handling that consists of 10 hours of prescribed topics and a minimum of 2 hours of live-fire range time. (On March 23, 2015 this will be reduced to 8 hours total). There is no mandatory minimum of rounds that must be shot on target, and there is not an annual re-qualification. Even though the CCW license allows the civilian to carry a loaded gun in a holster in public, courses are not required to even cover holstering or un-holstering a loaded and chambered handgun safely. The class need only be completed safely and, in most cases, you will be certified. While there are no statistics available on how many rounds the average concealed carry citizen fires in practice yearly, we can make a safe bet that most of those rounds are fired under lax conditions, gun already out of the holster, at static targets. Sadly, most believe that because they have a ccw license, and because they are able to operate a gun well enough to hit a static target, they are done with training.

For police officers in Ohio (and similarly nationwide), the OPOTA certification requires as low as a 25 round test, again shot at static targets. In fact, according to nationwide studies, an overwhelming majority of officers fire an average of less than 100 rounds per year in practice and qualification. Due to budget cuts in departments across the nation, training is the first thing to be cut and qualification requirements have consistently been reduced and shortened. For example, Ohio revamped their Carbine rifle OPOTA qualifications recently and the new test does not involve any shooting behind cover or shooting and moving. The test consists of positional fire at a static target from 15 feet out to 150 feet. It was later amended to ease requirements on the 150 foot section because many departments do not have access to a 150 foot range to qualify on. All too often qualification requirements and training needs are reduced due to budgetary concerns, lack of ammunition availability, lack of training facilities, etc.

An NYPD officer, who had a military background and therefore had a stronger perspective on training, commented on this to the New York Times following an investigation into police involved shootings:

One officer, who joined the force with a military background and spoke anonymously because he feared reprisals, said the problem was training. The department has “a factory line” approach to weapons training in which officers “get the basics — breathing, trigger control,” but not much else, he said. “It’s very brief, minimal. Firearms training is important — it’s very important,” the officer concluded. “And it’s something that is not taken seriously.”

Given the very low frequency that officers train/practice and the low standards of qualifications, is there any wonder why, when the FBI police-involved shooting statistics are released, they indicate officers’ accuracy nationwide is 15%-20%. That means statistically about 80% of officer-fired rounds in deadly confrontations are complete misses. Many of those rounds end up injuring innocent bystanders and hostages. It’s a safe bet that many officers themselves were injured due to them failing to stop a threat in time because they could not hit the suspect(s) with effective fire.

Now, this is not an indictment of qualification nor is it an attack on those who do not train harder, per se. While I do personally believe that firearm qualification requirements for both police and civilians are extremely low, the problem we face has more to do with our perspective on being qualified versus actually being trained to operate a gun in a high stress event. What we need to do is push the educational aspect of gunfighting to the point where people understand that being able to put a predetermined amount of holes in a target from a prescribed distance in a controlled environment in no way, shape or form prepares you for a deadly confrontation. Nor does it give you ANY idea how you will perform or shoot in said confrontation.

There are many levels to the knowledge of fighting. Fighting with a gun is no different, it is still fighting. It is, in fact, a martial art. Stance, grip, motions of the draw, balance, leverage, explosive movement, fast reaction times—all of these apply in gunfighting as much as they do in hand-to-hand combat. You do not walk into a martial arts dojo, spend 12 or 20 hours with an instructor and walk out an expert with a high-ranking belt. Nor would strapping on that belt every day for five or ten or twenty years magically make you a fighting expert. Yet, that is exactly how many feel about the gun. After a qualification course for a firearm, while you may walk out with a gun license or commission, you are not an expert. Nor are you prepared to deal with a deadly confrontation based upon that certification alone. Solid shooting instruction that focuses on the fundamentals and the mechanics of the shot is a good place to start. But when you take solid shooting instruction and mix it with induced-stress drills and a good dose of Survival Mindset training, you end up with a winning combination.

Let’s take a look at Charles Darwin’s famous statement about survival: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change.” When applied to deadly force encounters, that statement rings truer than anything else you could say about surviving a life or death struggle. You can be the greatest static marksman on the range. You can be the strongest and fastest shooter, on the range. But when a real life or death situation happens, environment and circumstances are very rarely ideal in the sense that you would have plenty of time to get your stance just right, line your sights up, take your time deciding what to do, etc. Most gunfights are over in a matter of seconds and usually happen in extremely close quarters and less than ideal environmental conditions. The only thing that will prepare you to adapt your decision making and shooting skills to those rapidly changing factors is realistic, defensive training that encompasses shooting skill, stress inoculation, high-speed decision making, and survival mindset. Strength, marksmanship and even intelligence all together are not enough.

While it is understandable that many people, civilians and officers alike, are not aware that this other level of training exists, it is out there. We try our hardest to encompass those training criteria in our One Life Defense program here in NE Ohio. There a few other programs in Ohio and several across the nation that also offer excellent training in lethal force preparedness.

The first step is understanding that it is necessary to truly be as prepared as you can be to handle a confrontation with one or more violent human beings. Even after you have received some solid training, these skills are perishable. Six months, a year, or more, down the road if you find yourself in a situation, you may be fatally surprised at your lack of ability. There is no embarrassment in seeking further training, and it’s usually a fun thing to do as well. Even if you are at a good level now, going out to train once in a while will keep your skills sharp and gives you a chance to see how you stack up to the skills of others. In the end, actual training is truly an investment in something that could save your life or the life of someone around you. The same cannot be said about a simple qualification.

Train. Learn. Practice.

Varg Freeborn is owner and head instructor at One Life Defense, LLC Defensive Firearms Training (www.onelifedefense.com).