Home of the Official
Massachusetts Police Shooting Team

Competition shooting is about applying a single raw skill (like fitness) to solve a problem (like a fitness test); the problem is the “stage” and the task is to shoot your way through it as fast and accurately as possible, on-demand, under pressure. Think of a match like a fitness test, but instead of strength and endurance, it’s testing gun-handling and shooting. A competitive shooting match is not “real life.” It is not a “gunfight.” Matches do not require the application of tactics, nor do they require any kind of communication whatsoever (other than the shooter’s ability to listen to the range safety officer’s instructions immediately before and after you shoot each stage). 

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Practical shooting matches do require a high degree of round accountability to collect the maximum amount of points available. To “miss” the target, thereby failing to collect any points, is unacceptable and can ruin a score. A critical part of any practical and competitive shooter’s training priorities quickly becomes how to “call shots” thus, knowing instantly when a shot doesn’t go where it was supposed to; this skill allows competitors to “make up” shots they miss with quick follow-on shots. Today, depending on where you look around the country, police officers involved in shootings deliver bullets where they need to, at best, 50% of the time. At worst, police are accurate 10% of the time. If an officer on his best day fires ten rounds “in real life,” five of those rounds go unaccounted for.  On the same officer’s worst day, nine of those rounds go unaccounted for. Neither statistic is acceptable.

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Furthermore, real pressure is applied on a competitive shooter using a timer. On a macro level, the competitor must identify and plan the quickest way to get through a stage. On a micro level, the same competitor has to actually press the trigger as fast as they can, while transitioning from target to target and moving from position to position. In other words, both the speed at which competitors MOVE and the speed at which they SHOOT matter greatly. At the end of a USPSA stage, the total number of points collected from every shot is divided by the time it took the competitor to fire his or her last round (referred to as “Hit Factor” scoring). Speed is as important as accuracy. 

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Today, the large majority of “police firearm qualifications” require little to no speed. Our state’s qualification, for example, gives officers forty-five seconds to fire ten rounds - with a reload in between - from fifteen yards. That’s one round every 4.5 seconds. The handling can be slow. The shooting can be slow. Appreciating the large majority of officer-involved shootings are reactive in nature and violently fast, time standards like these do nothing to prepare police for “real life,” where shooting accurately and speedily from the holster is the key to surviving.  And the key to winning. 

 

In reality, competitive shooting sports demand more accountability and more speed from police officers than their department’s bi-annual qualification ever will. Participation in shooting sports should be required, or at the very least encouraged by administrations and training staff. Like any other raw skill, shooting capability matters first (like fitness) and without it, situational awareness, decision-making, and tactics are useless. The better an officer is at moving and shooting their way through a USPSA stage, the more prepared, more accountable they’re going to be when faced by a deadly threat “in real life.” 

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