“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” —George S. Patton
I was at the State Senate hearing yesterday on HB 135. I heard a great deal of testimony. Senator Carson asked people not to read their testimony, Zandra Rice-Hawkins, boringly read hers. Other such liberals gave us the same old boring crap.
Alton’s Police Chief Ryan Heath, speaking in favor of passage of HB 135, told the committee that the average person simply isn’t trained to make these on-the-spot decisions regarding use of deadly force. He asserted that Police have training in the handling of firearms, use of force and it is part of their jobs. And Chief Heath is correct. there is nothing incorrect about his statement. In fact, I had become so used to hearing it.
Something happened at that very moment. I received a text message question from an individual organizing a “training” event at the ranges I oversee. Wait a minute…are police really better trained than private citizens? I have to seriously think about this now because we have hosted so many training events, I have lost count. Everything from basic handgun to some of the more expensive, serious tactical and defensive classes.
We are not talking about the run-of-the-mill “schmucks” and charlatans who buy a few guns and run around ranges in TV-styled faux tactical stances. We have real instructors coming to our facilities with serious resumes.
Take Rob Pincus, for example. Rob will be at the Londonderry Fish & Game Club this Thursday and Friday, conducting a 2-day advanced pistol handling course.
Rob Pincus is a professional trainer, author and consultant. He and his staff at I.C.E. Training Company provide services to military, law enforcement, private security and students interested in self-defense. Rob is the Developer of the Combat Focus Shooting program, the most efficient defensive firearms training methodology available today.
Rob provides efficient training methodologies to those interested in developing firearms, tactical operations and defensive skills. These methods stress gaining maximum value from limited training resources and working well with what the body does naturally under real world conditions.
Rob has experience as a law enforcement officer and executive protection agent and was also commissioned as an officer in the United States Army Reserve after graduating from the Military College of Vermont with a degree in Political Science. Rob serves the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office as a Training Officer and has been a staff writer with S.W.A.T. Magazine since 2001.
From 2003 through 2007, Rob was the Director of The Valhalla Training Center in Montrose, Colorado. Rob developed the training doctrines and programs that brought Valhalla to the attention of the entire shooting industry as a leading source of reality based firearms training. During this time, Valhalla was identified by the Rand Corporation as a leader in private sector reality based training and as a sole source provider to 10th Group Army Special Forces for Extreme Close Quarters Counter Ambush training. Rob was awarded the Range of the Year award by the National Association of Shooting Ranges for 2007.
In Late 2007, Rob launched I.C.E. Training Company and began traveling and teaching around the country and the world. Rob is one of the busiest instructors in the industry, conducting well over 50 courses a year in over 40 locations. He travels over 300 days a year, bringing cutting edge personal defense information to students ranging from military and law enforcement special operations personnel to those who are just considering their first defensive firearm. In 2005, Rob began production of the Personal Defense Firearms DVD Series which evolved to include the Personal Defense Network online resource for training information. To date, the DVD series has shipped over 4 Million copies and consists of over 75 titles. There is no other series of defensive training video series that even comes close to this level of distribution. In addition to his print, video and in-person teaching, Rob has been involved in the production of several TV shows including Personal Defense TV, Best Defense, Stop The Threat, World News Tonight, The Daily Show, Best Defense: Survival, Weaponology, Trigger Time and dozens of local and regional news pieces covering training and firearms rights & responsibilities topics.”
Rob and his I.C.E. team are also regularly sought out as a Team Building and Leadership Development consultants by business leaders and multi-national corporations and conduct programs involving firearm familiarization and other unique experiences.
Recently, Rob has focused on program and instructor development. Instructors groups that have sought out Rob’s expertise and integrated components of his programs include the Chicago Police Department FTU, South Wales Police Department Training Unit (UK), NSW SEAL Qualification Training, Bavarian Polizie (DE), Orange County (FL) Sheriff’s Office and 19th Group Army Special Forces. Rob also conducts an annual conference for certified Combat Focus Shooting Instructors and is one of the founders of the Association of Defensive Shooting Instructors.
That is a pretty impressive resume and that is just one example of who is training members of this community. We have others with like or similar skill sets frequently at our facilities.
It is a mistake to think because police are trained in firearm use, they are less likely to kill innocent bystanders. In 1993 the University of Chicago Study conducted a study showing that in about 700,000 police shooting incidents, 330 innocent bystanders perished. Inversely, 80 million private citizens owning guns killed 30 innocent bystanders. Police shooting incidents had a 1200 times higher accidental shooting rate than the gun-owning population at that time.
HB 135 was not a gun bill. It was about whether one can use force where one has a right to be, versus the ambiguous duty to retreat with, “complete safety.” (What exactly does that mean?) But liberals and the cops who testified insisted on making it a gun bill. And we heard the same old tired discussions: A gun will be taken away by criminals, Family members will be killed, other nefarious fake gun statistics and false equivalencies. The pejoratives flowed…cowboy shoot-outs, drug dealers and gangsters, it was boring. Finally, It should bother us that liberals equate gun ownership to by private citizens on an even par with drug dealers and gun-toting gangsters.
Are some citizens better trained than some police officers? I would have to say yes, some are. They invest the time, money in classes, and hours on the range practicing. I see fewer police officers doing that than I see private citizens. Inversely, I know of a couple of N.H. State Troopers who are members of our club and they shoot and hone their skills pretty regularly. I suspect they would be far better off and better prepared than their peers in a bad situation.
Londonderry Police Department has its own range with ongoing training. For a small town police department, I would say most of their officers are more proficient than most other small towns of comparable size.
In final analysis, I think Chief Heath’s information, ideas and viewpoints on armed civilians are grossly outdated. While it is true there is a significant spike in gun ownership, there also exists a significant spike in training courses. I should know, I have a long line of instructors, with students looking to set up classes. While more people are buying guns, more people are doing the right and responsible thing getting training.
HB 135 should fail. It should fail because Stephen Shurtleff is not worthy of his seat of Representation, He has turned on the very people who elected him…Turned, because he has sent a message with HB 135 essentially telling us, “I do not trust the personal judgment of the New Hampshire citizen; I do not trust you who elected me to have guns.” In the end, armed citizens respect the law, want to do the right and responsible thing. Examples of criminals and bad actors in Florida using their Stand Your Ground law is denigrating to law-abiding citizens who take the time to be informed and do the right thing.
