Law Enforcement and Military personnel have probably been trained decently, but it depends on their assignments in their formations and most training conducted is likely not the best due to a variety of situations.

• Budget limitations
• Inflated Safety Precautions
• Skill Level of Trainees and Instructors
• Group Size
• Regulation
• Regimented Thought Processes

Unfortunately, when the bare minimum standard is met, often there is no elaboration and no need to progress further in the subject. This kind of training makes for mediocre, or just “good enough” capability.

Budgets for these organizations will limit the amount of training that can be completed due to the cost of ammunition, spare parts, maintenance tools, and other miscellaneous supply needs. Trainers in these organizations usually do not “go off script” to the approved curriculum from the higher authority.

The state of Colorado, for example, has a very specific curriculum for their law enforcement POST training and further dictates what minimum annual training must be done by each officer while employed as a state officer. You could imagine the amount of red tape for any changes to happen – for better or worse.

Safety precautions, although important, are almost always over-inflated to protect the person in charge of the class (cover-your-own-ass policy). Meaning if an injury or accident were to happen, the person in charge can show they did everything in their power to prevent injury – even at the degradation of training.

Speaking from personal experience, the military has a worksheet called the Deliberate Risk Assessment Worksheet (DRAW). When the DRAW is filled out it must be approved by the officer-in-charge who will assume responsibility for any risk(s) associated with the training. The problem is that most will attempt to dwindle the perceived risk to zero, which NOT possible, adding factors that significantly reduce the effectiveness of the training.

In the Army, soldiers are required to wear their helmet and body armor while shooting, even if the sole purpose is marksmanship and familiarization (i.e. no movement, getting in and out of vehicles, or tactical training). Helmets and body armor provides little risk mitigation on a range that is not dynamic and will degrade a person’s appetite to learn.