Those Damned Gun Shows Again

New findings from FBI about cop attackers and their weapons

So many great and excellent numbers in here! So many Brady Bunch Bull Shit (BBBS) removers. Where to start?!?!

Some quick highlights:

From a pool of more than 800 incidents, the researchers selected 40, involving 43 offenders (13 of them admitted gangbangers-drug traffickers) and 50 officers, for in-depth exploration. They visited crime scenes and extensively interviewed surviving officers and attackers alike, most of the latter in prison.

Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows. What was available “was the overriding factor in weapon choice,” the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked a particular gun “because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being.”

Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was “hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws.”

WHAT!?! They didn't go down to their local gun show and buy an assault weapon??? Sacrilege! You mean they didn't get a Glock Fowty because it's featured on TV?? No way!

Almost all carried when on the move and strong majorities did so when socializing, committing crimes or being at home. About one-third brought weapons with them to work. Interestingly, the offenders in this study more commonly admitted having guns under all these circumstances than did offenders interviewed in the researchers’ earlier 2 surveys, conducted in the 1980s and ’90s.

Ok folks, lets get more sober and serious. Private Property Owners! Listen Up! Your rules against carrying in the car or at work did not work for these folks. Laws against having or carrying the guns didn't stop these folks. They do...not....care to follow your rules and laws. What does that mean when you pompously exclaim "I don't want people carrying guns at my business, so I'm going to put a rule in my little handbook here that says they can't! That'll fix it!" Really, think about it.

These guys aren't taking a night off. They don't leave their gun at home when they go to the bar for a drink. Laws preventing legal gun owners from carrying guns in these places aren't stopping these people.

More seriously:

Nearly 40% of the offenders had some type of formal firearms training, primarily from the military. More than 80% “regularly practiced with handguns, averaging 23 practice sessions a year,” the study reports, usually in informal settings like trash dumps, rural woods, back yards and “street corners in known drug-trafficking areas.”

One spoke of being motivated to improve his gun skills by his belief that officers “go to the range two, three times a week [and] practice arms so they can hit anything.”

In reality, victim officers in the study averaged just 14 hours of sidearm training and 2.5 qualifications per year. Only 6 of the 50 officers reported practicing regularly with handguns apart from what their department required, and that was mostly in competitive shooting. Overall, the offenders practiced more often than the officers they assaulted, and this “may have helped increase [their] marksmanship skills,” the study says.

The offender quoted above about his practice motivation, for example, fired 12 rounds at an officer, striking him 3 times. The officer fired 7 rounds, all misses.

More than 40% of the offenders had been involved in actual shooting confrontations before they feloniously assaulted an officer. Ten of these “street combat veterans,” all from “inner-city, drug-trafficking environments,” had taken part in 5 or more “criminal firefight experiences” in their lifetime.

Now pay attention CCW folks! How often have you caught yourself thinking "those gangstas can't shoot for crap, I'm good just plinking at a target once in a while!" DEAD WRONG. And I mean DEAD. These guys are out practicing because, shock of shocks, they EXPECT to get into a gunfight. They KNOW they'll get into a gunfight, and by God, they want to make sure they SURVIVE the gunfight.

What about you? Do you want to survive the gunfight? Are you practicing as often and as well as you should?

Think through the ramifications of this study very carefully and re-evaluate your training priorities. Find someone skilled to work with you on instinct shooting, on fast target acquisition, on movement. Turn up your situational awareness when out and about.

Read the entire article at that link and take a good, hard look at yourself.