</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I don't know. It very well may have been his fault. We had 2 officers shot and killed in a gun battle quite a few years ago; both carrying automatics. One of them was sick and they were on their way back to the station for that one to go home sick when they spotted the suspects from a robbery that had just occurred. When the officers got out of their car, the hijackers jumped out of theirs and started shooting. So with the hijackers behind one car and the officers behind another, they exchanged shots until the officers had to reload. Witnesses said the officers reloaded but it appeared that their guns wouldn't shoot when the hijackers walked the around the car and shot both of them. )</font>
This sounds an awful lot like a garbled version of the "Newhall Incident", where two California Highway Patrol officers got killed while trying to reload their revolvers. They had taken the time to carefully put their empty brass neatly into their pockets, just like their STUPID range procedure taught them to do. This incident helped make some change in such stupid training, as it forced people to look at the consequences of ignoring a time proven truth - under stress, we revert to habit.
If your habits are good ones, drilled in drilled in drilled in drilled in drilled in until they REALLY are habits, most likely under stress you will do the right thing. Or so say the professionals (as opposed to the gun store commandos).
That doesn't mean a trip to the range a few times a year.
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( In that case,
apparently they put new clips)</font>
"Magazine" is the correct term. Clips were used in some early automatics like the Borchardt and the Mauser Broomhandle, but if it is a box-like device that contains ammunition, it's a magazine.
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( in their guns, but didn't jack that first round into the chamber. It appeared that in the heat of a gun battle, they simply forgot how to properly use their weapons. So, in that case, we don't think the guns malfunctioned, and of course, one can't help but wonder how they each used a clip of ammo without hitting a suspect, or how they could forget to properly use the weapon. )</font>
Contrary to Hollyweird nonsense and anti-gun propaganda, most cops are NOT well trained. They are not drilled, drilled, drilled. They have a course in the Academy, maybe, and then they qualify once a year, for the most part. It's a budget thing, and often a politics thing. And, according to a lot of folks who are in a position to know, on average about 10% of cops are actually interested in shooting well. Seems strange to me, but it's true. I've heard that from more cops and law enforcement firearms instructors than I can count.
I used to think I knew a lot about guns. After all, I lived, breathed, ate, and slept guns.
Then I took a REAL firearms course. No, not an NRA course - those are great for beginners. I mean a REAL defensive handgun course taught by a nationally recognized heavyweight in the field. It was an amazing eye-opener. I found out how little I knew. Since then I've tried to keep learning.
My first course happened to be from a guy named
John Farnam, but there are a number of good schools where you can learn how much you didn't really know. If you are going to keep a gun around for defensive purposes, I highly recommend it.
For those of us on a limited budget, you can get some free education by reading Farnam's
Quip's and Quotes.
You might even find out that nobody flies across the room when hit with a .44 mag and there is no such thing as a guaranteed one shot stop with anything that one man can hold and fire, short of an anti-tank missle.
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