Now you just said this in a prior post and I quote;

"Absolutely not what I’m saying. We are accountable for all rounds fired. With training the shooter can control the weapon. At close distances using short bursts the weapon is controllable. At distance this control diminishes. For that reason we do not employ FA for longer range shots. The shooter has to know his limits. Range time will make it clear to the shooter what those limits are"


How do you "account" for rounds fired through walls where one cannot see?

If an individual cannot "see" where that round is going then that round cannot be accounted for....

Agreed. We are not shooting through walls. The bad guys are. In the above scenario we could see the muzzle flash and returned fire very specifically at it.

TS, I would completely agree with you that shooting within inches of a friendly is not the place for FA. Again I will reiterate that there are limits to how much control one has over FA. Knowing those limits and operating within them is key.

The vast majority of all LE engagements is and should be semi auto. But to say there is never a time or place for it I have to respectfully disagree. My opinion is based solely on my experience as a trainer for my team and actual use of FA in gunfights.

Excellent question. While effective at close range the spread of the pellets is not only ineffective at distance but also liability. I don’t get to choose the distances I will have to fight at. With that in mind I choose the carbine. One weapon, anytime, anywhere. Going back to what I said earlier accountability is always a factor. Not only can I not acceptably control FA at distance I cannot control the spread of the pellets. Like you said earlier "Ever been in a Super Wal-Mart?"

On a side note I’ve seen a guy take three shots of 12 pellet 00 buck to the upper chest at 7 yards before falling down. One shot incapacitation is not always the reality of gun fights.

LOL, I see you've been reading.... very good. I doubt you serve most high risk warrants at Super Wal-Marts but I agree with your reasoning and why I wrote what I did.

I agree with LEO's using AR's, but, I could not justify full auto in any LEO situation. Again, I'll go head to head with someone using full auto indexing from tgt to tgt and beat them with time for a beer. Well aimed fire ends gun fights everytime.;)

You find yourself in NE Florida you let me know. At worst I win and get a free beer. At best I loose and learn something new that I can share with my guys making them stronger. Either way I win;)


Take care and stay safe.

Jim

Well said. Win-win for everybody.

Get your beer money ready, Jim.:munchin

TR

Excellent thread. It's been very informative for a non-firearm type guy.

I was in New York City this past week, and I happened to notice a large number of LEOs patrolling the city with potentially full-auto weapons; it could be that they were trying to beat the heat, but they always seemed to be in groups of three as well (the beginnings of TS's training with groups of LEOs?). These were especially prevelant around the heavily populated areas: Central Park; Statue of Liberty; Columbus Circle; and a few others. To my untrained eye, these LEOs were carrying: an MP5; a shotgun; an M-4 w/optics.

Forget the weapons for a moment and the obvious implications of "spraying and praying" in an environ like Central Park, they were also wearing what looked like a modified battle rattle, i.e. body armor, k-pot, elbow and knee pads. How often do they receive training in moving through an urban enviornment with that kind of kit and weaponry? I'm pretty damn sure the lads in the Sandbox aren't all that happy wearing it so I can imagine, in New York's sweltering heat, that it isn't much more comfortable to say the least.

Obviously, if you open up in an area like Central Park there is going to be collateral damage; that damage could, however, be magnified if the LEOs involved weren't adequately trained to move with their kit and weapon. Extreme heat, fatigue, and a high stress environ could easily lead to impaired judgement increasing the amount of collateral damange while gunning for the pajamahadeen.

But this is all probably beside the point. The annual budget of the NYPD is approximately $3.3 billion; surely they could divert some of that funding into a rotational training programme? This might even be something the Feds should subsidize. IIRC, the primary function of PMCs like Blackwater and Triple Canopy is to offer training; both already have similar courses in place that could be expanded upon to accomodate such a training class that has been danced around here.

-KS

n.d.- I was just getting ready to log off, when I caught this at the end of Blackwater's "Training" page

My question to this is what if there was another person between you and the muzzle flash that you couldn't see. Seems pretty feesable since nobody could see the shooter and only the muzzle flash when they decided to fire. I know that if anyone on my department did this they would definitely be in trouble and no longer a "swat guy."

Also challenging the Team Sergeant's shooting isn't a very wise idea..... It WILL prove to be very embarassing.

Dfirsty,
Unless it was the invisible man :)….Anyone between the muzzle flash and the shooter would have been silhouetted. I know what I saw and was sure of what I was shooting at. So were the other four officers who shot as well. So let me ask you. What would you have done to get the bad guy to stop shooting so you could advance to recover your downed officer? Would you have just moved into the hail of bullets? Or maybe ran away? What is your protocol on your SWAT team since you clearly have a better solution? My team’s tactics and techniques are the end result of decades of successful resolution to thousands of time sensitive critical incidents. However, we are always searching for a “better way”. As I am here to learn, if you have something productive to add I am all ears. If not…

Like all officer involved shootings this one was critiqued ad nauseam by the agency and found to be in compliance with state law and agency policy.

edited to add: Dfirsty, feel free to contact me offline since you feel I am unqualified to hold the position I currently and humbly do.
.

Most L.E. are not qualified to use full auto and do not have the background to even make the correct decission of which weapons system to buy. Holiwood is their primary instructors. We are setting up a course at Rattlesnake Ridge to address this issue. The 2 day course will cover the operation of most of the types of full auto systems out there for the purpose of educating the community. A non tactical course based on basic firearms skills. This will be a mini foriegn weapons course covering. MP5, UZIs, STENs, AKs, Grease Gun, Thompson, numerous M16 varients in 9mm, 40, 5.56, 6.8 etc.
We will deffinately let prior military in who just want the training as well as contractors going overseas. Haven't made the decission on straight civilians yet.