Honestly? The article is packed with sweeping, erroneous generalizations. Here's a few just from the police section (although the military and competitive sections are just as god-awful).
First, the police officer has a sworn duty to seek out, confront, and arrest very bad people for doing very bad things, and to press forward in the face of armed resistance. This is the opposite of what the citizen should be doing, namely avoidance, deterrence, de-escalation and evasion. Using the firearm is a last ditch, desperate measure, as a last resort for the armed citizen.
Actual police officers who worked in places that actually needed them have
tons of experience deterring and de-escalating dangerous situations. Because fighting and shooting isn't what they're there to do. And they're usually quite proficient at identifying pre-attack behavior.
What you want to do is find out how long your potential instructor was a police officer, where they did time, and what they did there. If a guy claims to be retired police, but doesn't qualify for LEOSA, walk away immediately. If he didn't work long enough to get LEOSA, but claims to be retired law enforcement, he's lying or fluffing his resume with non-sworn time. A guy that was a part-time cop for two years in a McMansion suburb town has zero experience. If he's using that claim to support his credentials, it means he has nothing better.
A guy that did 30 years in a big city, with 3 years as department rangemaster? Yes, he'll be able to teach you things.
Other differences include the fact that the officer will usually have a full size service pistol and lots of spare ammo, body armor, armed and trained partner(s), a long gun in the car, and direct real-time radio contact with armed friends.
lolno. Many jurisdictions have officers on individual patrol. And in a deadly confrontation, by the time backup arrives, the fight's already over in most cases.
People are trained to wear body armor. The whole point of training, however, is to
not actually use it.
And I've heard exactly one thing that a cop learned about having a long gun in the trunk. It came from Sergeant Timothy Gramins, who learned that the AR-15 in his trunk and the Remington 870 in the squad car did him absolutely zero good when he got into a shootout. And the 47 rounds of .45 ACP he carried, which resulted in 14 hits, just barely put the bad guy down. Backup didn't arrive until long after the fight was over.
Oh, and he switched to a Glock 17, and 145 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
But frankly, I think Gramins' lesson of "If it ain't on you, you don't have it" is a pretty good self-defense lesson.
Next issue. Police trainers tend to have a distorted view of engagement distances, because of their duty to arrest.
This is true, but CCW holders are equally foolish. How many people never practice beyond 7 yards?
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You want an instructor? Look for an instructor. All the experience in the world doesn't mean a damn thing. If I had to pick an instructor based on former profession alone--I would pick a retired teacher. Because they likely know how to teach, which is the first thing we want.
Beyond that? Basic knowledge. Do they know what fundamentals of pistol marksmanship are? Protip: "Follow-through" is not "doing the same thing on the next shot" (I wish I was making that up). Do they know about practical CCW issues? If you ask them what their thoughts are on the Serpa controversy, and they ask you what Himalayan mountain climbing has to do with CCW--move along.
Do they advocate dumb things? Sorry, but empty-chamber carry is an option of last resort, only to be used if you can't get comfortable with loaded-chamber carry or your gun is difficult or unsafe to operate from "Condition 1" (and you can't get another gun that you
can carry ready to go). If a guy tells you to carry with an empty chamber because you're more likely to shoot yourself than need to defend yourself, that's a guy that (A) thinks you are a moron, (B) is wildly confused about concealed carry, and (C) doesn't realize that he should be teaching you how to carry safely.
Do they have a case of the "Onlys"? Ask them about, say, cartridges. If their answer is that ".45 ACP is the
only self-defense cartridge to use, you have to shoot a guy twice with a 9mm to equal one .45", then they have no idea what they're talking about. There are no only's. Here's a better answer:
"Well, I think that 9mm is a great balance of size, capacity, and power, and the smaller 9mm guns are still quite usable. But .380 is certainly powerful enough, and .380 pocket autos are a lot easier to conceal than a double-stack 9mm subcompact. And single-stack .45s like the Springfield XDS are certainly concealable and perform quite well. Here, try out one of mine and see how comfortable you are with it."
