09-27-2011, 07:49 PM
RangerRick Wrote:That's the ideal but the problem is as soon as the firefight starts you get get a massive infusion of adrenaline and your pupils dilate and you can't even see the sights on your gun because of the reduced depth of field.
Well trained teams on a mission can temper that, but you have to be a very cool customer to go from chasing a mall shoplifter to fighting for your life in a matter of seconds, particularly after you've been hit.
Most cops involved in shootings have no idea how many rounds they fired until either the slide locks back or they pull the mag and count. In the latter case they usually underestimate by a factor of two to three.
It takes nearly daily training to prepare for situations like that, and most cops don't get that opportunity.
RR
This is the first area that I focus on in training. It's totally different to conduct stress training combined with live fire, like physically-demanding tasks conducted right before shooting, than the physiological conditions RangerRick just described. Stress training petty much only provides the mental stress and increased heart rate, but not the levels of norepinephrine and adrenal cortisols that attack your heart and brain when you find yourself in a situation where death or serious injury is imminent. There is a very noticeable difference between getting down and doing push-ups, sprinting, or dragging someone in a SKEDCO, versus seeing a car about to hit you, or a person with ill intent approaching you in your car. It is even worse when you witness a death or serious injury, especially when you're in proximity to the event to a degree that you painfully realize that it could have been you, or might be you next. There are ways to simulate this in training, but very, very few people are actually doing it.