Every other month or so the church I attend arranges and pays for professional training for the security team.



We always use the same instructor so he has an idea where most of the team is at and what we need to work on. We always start out with the basics of drawing and reholstering from concealment and magazine changes.



Then we moved to shooting while moving (left and right and forward and backward) then we worked on shooting from retention and finally they had us run approximately 50 yards up to the firing line draw and fire five rounds while advancing on the target. The idea was to simulate that you were in one part of the church and had to respond to an active shooter in another part of the church. I noticed something interesting on that drill.



Two of the guys (one was ex military SF and the other just had a boat load of training) ran up, hit the line and advanced almost right up to their target and then unloaded all five shots from probably within 20 feet where the rest of us did kinda of a step, shot, step, shot, kind of thing. When you think about it though the 2 were probably a lot more likely to have all five shots right on target than those of us who started shooting at the line and kept shooting as we moved closer.



Anyway I had a good day and once again I was reminded that there's a lot more to self defense than just standing on a range plinking

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Retired Career Security Guard

Sounds like good training and an excellent instructor.

Moving and shooting is hard...moving, shooting, and advancing on someone shooting at you is harder.

Hopefully you'll never have to use it. A church security team...what is the world coming to. No offense to you guys. I understand. It's just crazy that it has to come to that these days.

I can walk out my front door, throw a rock and just about hit New Life Church. The Person in charge of our security team was involved in this incident as a police officer. Our church takes security very seriously

2007 Colorado YWAM and New Life shootings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Retired Career Security Guard

Any time you can get training on someone else's dime it's a great deal!

I don't know what SF unit your man came from, but it's generally a good idea for the less trained to take a cue from them in matters of handgun combat. LOL

My church also has a security team, comprised primarily of current and former police officers, FBI, and homeland security agents. I have been asked to join but declined, as my skill-set pales next to any of theirs.

We have had some break ins, but nothing more serious. Some things should be of limits , but sadly today nothing is.

Smoke. Hope your team works some hand to hand combat into your training.

Given, this is Colorado Springs I'm going to guess 10th Group

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Retired Career Security Guard

What did your instructor say about this?

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Freedom isn't free.

He didn't address it specifically.

There was the instructor and then the two guys that did the drill differently were like Co-instructors so every time the instructor covered a point he'd ask them if they had any input and then ask us for any questions or comments.

There were a couple of minor points of disagreement between the SF guy and the instructor as well.

When we did the shooting while moving backward drill the SF guy said backing up was bad Ju Ju because you didn't know what was behind you and the tendency was to look at your route which takes your eyes off the bad guy.

At one point the instructor suggested using certain magazines at the range and certain magazines for carry and the SF guy said you should maintain all of your magazines and rotate them all between the range and carry.

Those were really the only two points though.

Oh and I'll add this too

The reason they had us run up to the line and then draw was 1.) range rules no loaded weapons (unholstered) behind the line and 2.) they didn't want anyone to trip and fall with a loaded weapon in their hand

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Retired Career Security Guard

Smoke, read the article...wow.

I've been involved in one active shooter incident. 2 of our own died that day before he got put down.

God bless and train hard.

BTW: Not sure if the SF comment was written as a question, but the 50 yd drills like that are designed to get your HR up, learning to run with your hand on your gun (you'd be surprised how many fall out if they don't), and putting together all the other moving/shooting drills you did that day.

There's normally cones or a 'line' where you draw...I'm guessing 10-15 yds? From that point as soon as you pick up those bouncing sights you fire.

IMO, the non-SF types did the drill correctly. The SF types just probably made it look cooler, but the point of the drill is to move and shoot as you advance on a threat, not run up to @7yds stop and do a rhythm drill....that's moving, stoping, and shooting

Id expect SF guys to draw and fire their shots quickly and accurately as they advance on the threat and be done with their 5 shots in the first few steps from where they're allowed to draw, where it would take everyone else much more distance.

Or maybe the SF guys just didn't hear the instructions for the drill correctly.

In any case train hard. Many agency/dept don't get the kind of training your guys do as regularly.

Moving and shooting is situation dependent. Shoot when necessary and sometimes that means shooting on the move. Obviously, from a marksmanship point of view, shooting while stationary is preferred. Alas, in a self-defense situation anything can happen.

There is only one thing that rules over all; be sure of your target before you shoot. If the movement is such that accuracy is completely out the window, don't shoot.

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Freedom isn't free.

That's not what they did.

Most of us slowed way down at the line, drew and advanced at a walking pace on the target while firing essentially the firing while moving forward drill we had just done.

The SF guy was moving much faster as he crossed the line and got much closer to the target before opening fire but never stopped moving.

The training guy did essentially the same thing but passed the target and did a look and assess after he passed it .

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Retired Career Security Guard

Makes sense...10th Mountain trains there.

I agree with the SF guy on the points he made about magazines AND moving backwards. In Krav Maga they teach to do a 360 degree scan for other threats by moving the rear foot to the front and pivoting on the other. That way any potential tripping hazards can be avoided without looking down.

I've heard it many times. ONE shot stops are the exception not the rule! But at the range I continued to aim 'n fire one round at-a-time. No double taps. Just SINGLE shots! Read the account of the shooting at Smoke's church and note, the perp was shot multiple times, by a trained LEO, before he committed suicide.
Think I'll alter my range routine.

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Accidents don't just happen...

10th Mountain is at Ft. Drum New York. They were originally formed at Ft. Carson.

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Retired Career Security Guard

FIRST I WANT TO CLARIFY THAT I DO NOT ATEND NEW LIFE CHURCH
FWIW Jeanne Assam was a former LEO who was acting as a volunteer security guard. My understanding is that she shot to slide lock and didn’t actually stop the guy until she hit him in the hip. She got some body hits on the guy but nothing necessarily in a vital area.

On a side note our security team was allowed to do some active shooter training with CSPD and I noticed that in every scenario they ran the in house security team got shot by the cops. One of our guys was on the SWAT team that went into New Life so I asked him how Jeanne Asaam wasn’t shot buy the responding officers and his reply without hesitation was because she was wearing a clearly identifiable security uniform.

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Retired Career Security Guard

The distance(s) from which you decide its necessary to engage an identified threat target is probably going to be dependent upon the totality of circumstances inherent in any particular situation. This can be a very dynamic, fluid and constantly evolving situation.

Having the skillset to meet the needs of different situations, likely to happen in the variety of situations and circumstances you anticipate encountering, probably isn't a bad thing.

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Ret LE Firearms inst & armorer

Saturday was also my first chance at shooting my Shield. I expected that the recoil would be noticeable because it’s a small gun (DW’s LCP kicks like a mule). I also expected that because of the short barrel it wouldn’t be all that accurate but I was very pleasantly surprised. When I shot my qualification with that gun I only missed 2 rounds and they were only just barely out of the circle.

In fact after going through the range training and qual with the Shield I decided to get my 4006 out and I was shooting all over the place with it. The instructor said it was because I was used to managing the recoil from the 9mm all day.

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Retired Career Security Guard

Roger that. Nothing wrong with that then.