Off the topic, has anyone seen the "no more hesitation" targets being supplied to the Government? Like something that would be supplied to the "Einsatzgruppen". They are disturbing on a visceral level. Unlike all other official government products, they are uniquely non-diverse. Just an oversight, surely. Love to hear your comments on them, Grim-they represent a sort of "anti-chivalry".I have heard of these products, and seen them. You can read about the controversy here and here. Let's look at a few of them, and then I'll give you my thoughts.
These targets are for law-enforcement training, and are called the "No More Hesitation" series. The company confirmed the intention was to train police not to hesitate to shoot these kinds of people. It's also clear why that might be important: hesitating to shoot someone who already has a firearm pointed at you can get you killed. Thus, this series exists to help police practice shooting people with guns pointed at them even if they happen to be pregnant women, children, little girls standing next to their even smaller brothers, and so on.
Training to kill such people must be undertaken with a very serious mind. I can give a case when killing such a person -- without hesitation -- might be appropriate: but it is not a policing case. It is a case from war. If you are operating against the kind of enemy that brainwashes children, or uses pregnant (or apparently-pregnant) women as suicide bombers, you may need this kind of training. In this case an enemy is relying on your humanity to give them a window to conduct a high-casualty attack. Sadly we have seen this in places like Iraq and Israel, so it is a consideration we have to take seriously. If a quick kill is necessary to prevent the detonation of such a weapon, and if such a detonation would injure more innocent people than the child you are killing to stop it, then it might be justifiable.
Killing pregnant women or children even in those circumstances is a serious moral crime. However, in that special case, the crime is not yours. It belongs to the men who bent the weak to their evil will.
However, that special case does not seem to include the intent of these targets. The above article includes a comment from a reader, who points out that most of the series has people inside their own homes -- wearing night-dresses and so forth -- who are pointing guns at the police officer. Now this seems to be exactly the kind of case in which hesitation is most appropriate, as these people have a legitimate right to have a handgun and to be responding with it to an intrusion. De-escalation training is surely what is needed here: to try to find a way to walk the situation away from where shots get fired at all.
If instead you are training to shoot without hesitation, what you are doing is dishonorable. To honor is to sacrifice, of yourself or your possessions, for something or someone you value more. Honor is the quality of a man who does this.
The path of honor in a case like this is to hesitate, to make the sacrifice of taking the risk onto yourself instead of making the child bear it. The purpose of the strong is to protect the weak: it is the reason you were given strength. You should hesitate long before you kill a child to save yourself, or a pregnant woman, or the elderly. Anyone who cannot see that is dishonorable, and unfit to bear arms.
An organization that teaches the strong to protect themselves at the expense of the weak is evil. It should be disbanded, replaced if necessary but with an entirely new organization, with a new corporate culture and no members who were associated with the decision to execute this kind of training.
At this time, of course, we only know that this product line was made available -- we do not know which agencies or forces undertook to train with it. We should push to find out, and remove anyone who thought this was a good idea from public service.
Those are my thoughts, since you asked.
...we only know that this product line was made available -- we do not know which agencies or forces undertook to train with it.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely.
We should push to find out....
With everything we have.
...remove anyone who thought this was a good idea from public service.
We don't even know who's using it--much less what agency. We also don't know the motive or the purpose.
We need to know these things first, not merely suspect them.
As you say, the only currently identifiable cases of legitimacy are war ones. However, we are in a war, and our very survival is in the wind.
Eric Hines
Well, the motive of the company that made them is clear enough.
ReplyDelete"The subjects in NMH targets were chosen in order to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training. I found while speaking with officers and trainers in the law enforcement community that there is a hesitation on the part of cops when deadly force is required on subjects with atypical age, frailty or condition (one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty). This hesitation time may be only seconds but that is not acceptable when officers are losing their lives in these same situations. The goal of NMH is to break that stereotype on the range, regardless of how slim the chances are of encountering a real life scenario that involves a child, pregnant woman, etc. If that initial hesitation time can be cut down due to range experience, the officer and community are better served."
The motives of the agencies using them -- if any! -- are not known. I do wonder about the "one officer" who was using pictures of his own kids. That's a serious commitment to desensitizing yourself to using deadly force without hesitation.
It's the motive of the users, though, that matter.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, too, about the value of shooting at pretty pictures as a means of losing a moment's hesitation. The targets of UBL, for instance, or of any hated criminal, have only entertainment value.
Plus, the targets are not shooting back, and there's no pressure of performance. It is, after all, not only the officer's life that's in the balance: it's that of his partner, as well, to the extent he has one and/or is able to wait for backup. And the life of the...pregnant woman or the child.
What matters in situations like that are all the recognition cues in the environment, including subliminal ones, that can only be taught effectively in live (if unloaded) situations, not by shooting at paper. This is the point of training scenarios like the USAF's Red Flag exercises, and similar ones the Navy runs (I assume the ground forces have similar exercises). These have Aggressors flying actual enemy aircraft, using enemy tactics, and the only thing that isn't real is the lack of live fire during the engagements.
Desensitization is something that has to be worked at, hard, and I wonder about the effectiveness even of shooting at pictures of one's own kids in that. That's a mind that's already in trouble, it seems to me; the pictures won't add anything other than to potentiate an already established attitude.
Eric Hines
I wonder, too, about the value of shooting at pretty pictures... of one's own kids...
ReplyDeleteI cannot speak to the value. The power of it is clear enough. It is a desecration.
I wonder what all those folks who think only police should have guns would think of this.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Maybe they think it would solve the problem if the police could take away our guns, because then they wouldn't have to worry about us having guns.
ReplyDeleteThere's another problem with this kind of training that occurs to me on reflection. The main cause of accidental shootings among hunters is that they get into a mindset where they are looking for a deer (or whatever else they are hunting), they are expecting to see a deer, they're focused on seeing a deer -- and then they see something and, bam, their mind says it must be a deer! That's how a lot of hunting accidents happen. What they teach you about that is that you need to expect that kind of reaction, and take an extra second to be sure of your target before you fire.
If you train yourself to be looking for a kid-with-a-gun, and you're expecting to see a kid-with-a-gun, it's quite likely that you're going to think you see one sooner or later. Unfortunately, you've taught yourself not to hesitate and make sure.
C'mon it's a Police State: OF COURSE you have to train the cops to be able to shoot *anybody*.
ReplyDeleteUpon reflection, change the above *anybody* to *everybody*
ReplyDeleteIt can offer you an even up to 1 hundred pounds first week thereby, it would be within your hand in order to meet any urgent Venture capitalists is usually a person or perhaps firm that supply capital money to the two new plus existing firms Still others choose to keep just about all accounts individual and separate things upon an agreed-upon system In these situations, the people decide to find a loan although the loan agreement might get turned down due to the below-average credit score payday loans online This machinery carries a useful lifetime of 5 years and you are therefore going to utilize straight-line method for decline, with no save value In some cases landlords encourage one of the right after methods and also, more likely, a variety of them
ReplyDeleteMaybe we need pretty pictures of spam commenters for our targets....
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
I don't recall that police hesitation has been identified as one of our national enforcement problems.
ReplyDeleteGrim and assembled Hall,
ReplyDeleteI called the company directly. They were informative, a bit aghast at what they had wrought, and thankful for a polite conversation on this topic. Evidently that has been the exception recently.
The facts apparently are as follows:
1) This was a real series.
2) It was requested by an LEO specifically to "train her people".
3) The original concept as requested was "no hesitation".
4) Marketing ran with this idea, and title... Bad call.
5) The mindset of the rest of the employees was, per the lady I spoke with, to Teach Hesitation in appropriate circumstances vice weapon=shoot. (My read was that she was on the level, I take people at face value.)
6) DHS did not request these targets, it was a "different Law Enforcement Department" (her words with an implication through context that it was not Federal)
7) A significant amount of the push back has been from the LE community.
8) The series is off the market, not just off the internet.
Thought ya'll might be interested in this info. The call was spurred by another conversation I was having with a friend who teaches at a FLETC. The core of the story was right, then blown a bit out of proportion and with some "extra" (read made up) information added. Rather like the MSM, unfortunately, in my opinion.
William sends.
Good news. Thank you, William.
ReplyDeleteI called them up and asked when they were going to produce a civilian line of "No Hesitation" targets featuring a SWAT team serving an illegal or wrong address warrant. When the receptionist wanted to argue, I asked if officers hesitating to shoot pregnant women was a problem and if so, how many lost officers it has resulted in.
ReplyDeleteI am not law enforcement, although I did try my hand at it and worked for the US Marshals Service in Beaumont, Texas under Marshal Norris Batiste. Since leaving the Corps, I have spent the majority of my life around law enforcement, Marshals, Uncle is a County Judge and I know a lot of deputy sheriffs, my baby brother is a Texas State Trooper.
With my background and ties to law enforcement I would rather officers hesitate than not in that particular situation.
So would I.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know why everyone in the series is white.
ReplyDeleteI think it rather depends on who the gun is pointed at, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteLast time I checked, bullets fired by a pregnant woman still have the same effect as those fired by a big, beefy man. So if the gun is "only" aimed at an LEO, fine.
But if there are third parties involved, I think having a gun pointed at another human being kinda-sorta outweighs "chivalry". In fact, I don't really see what any of this has to do with chivalry. At the point at which a woman (pregnant or not) threatens another person with a gun, she's no longer "weak", but in fact is an aggressor.
Just my two cents. We have instincts for a reason. We have brains to override instincts, also for good reason.
At the point at which a woman (pregnant or not) threatens another person with a gun, she's no longer "weak", but in fact is an aggressor.
ReplyDeleteIf she's being aggressive, rather than defensive. But the gun here is pointed at the camera, which is to say that it will be directly pointed at the person on the range using the target. Thus, the gun is pointed at you, whoever you are. Since the targets were to be sold to LEOs, the next question is whether she's in a situation of aggression.
Now, it looks like she's in a nursery (and not, say, robbing a convenience store). That looks like a defensive situation: it's pretty easy to see why a pregnant woman might be in a nursery, and why she might care to defend it. I suppose it's not absolutely impossible that an evil woman could invite you to her nursery and then aggressively threaten you -- assuming, perhaps, that no one would ever convict her for the murder. Still, that's probably a better plot for a Shakespearian drama than for a Law Enforcement training scenario.
It sounds from William's comments like people mostly had the good sense to recognize that this was deplorable. That was my hope (see "if any!" above), and I'm glad to see it confirmed.
Well, maybe. I"m not as convinced.
ReplyDeleteI think Eric's earlier point was quite sensible:
Desensitization is something that has to be worked at, hard, and I wonder about the effectiveness even of shooting at pictures of one's own kids in that. That's a mind that's already in trouble, it seems to me; the pictures won't add anything other than to potentiate an already established attitude.
I also thought William made a good point here:
The core of the story was right, then blown a bit out of proportion and with some "extra" (read made up) information added. Rather like the MSM, unfortunately, in my opinion.
The whole thing, while interesting fodder for conversation, strikes me as exactly the kind of story that gets people all riled up and emotional. Which is fine, so long as the brain kicks in, too.
Well, you're welcome to your own reading, of course.
ReplyDeleteBy the way:
In fact, I don't really see what any of this has to do with chivalry.
You are probably reading my use of the term chivalry as pertaining to male/female relations, but that is not how I intend it. Chivalry is a much wider code that pertains to the virtues and vices of warriors.
That is why, on the sidebar, "Chivalry" and "Chivalry and Women" are separate sections. Chivalry and its literature offer a beautiful way in which men and women can relate on terms of willing service each to the other, but that is only one facet of the code. Geoffroi de Charny's manual for knights -- he died at the battle of Poitiers, a member of the Order of the Star -- does talk for a page or two about how men and their wives ought to relate to each other (you might like his advice, which is that the best model is for the spouses to get along with mutual respect and friendship for each other). However, it's only for that brief section: he talks a lot more about how to train, how to relate to your lord, in what ways to moderate pursuit of wealth, how to be courageous, how to treat your friends, how to treat your enemies, duties, arms, and so on.
When the commenter wrote that he thought these targets represented a kind of "anti-chivalry," I think I know what he means. The problem isn't that the pregnant woman is a woman. The problem is teaching the protectors to protect themselves at the expense of others, without hesitation, even children.
When the commenter wrote that he thought these targets represented a kind of "anti-chivalry," I think I know what he means. The problem isn't that the pregnant woman is a woman. The problem is teaching the protectors to protect themselves at the expense of others, without hesitation, even children.
ReplyDeleteYour clarification helps, Grim.
Thanks.
I would like to reiterate that from my conversation the company seems to be a basically good company that managed to "stepped in it". The part that troubles me the most is two fold.:
ReplyDelete1) That this was requested specifically by someone responsible for training law enforcement employees.
And
2) That there was ANY sale of this product.
In my eyes the company has retained it's respect by accepting their mistake head on and pulling the product from sale entirely.
As for the chivalric take on this entire situation, I think the phrase "Anti-Chivalry" is accurate. The concept from the LEO Trainer was to intentionally train civil officers as if they were war fighters. Few things could be more troubling to me. It is against the foundations of the social contract (such as it is), it undermines the Constitutional protections we enjoy (such as are left anyway), and will destroy the value to society (and in some cases the very soul) of some of those who a sworn to protect it/other people. Bad all the way 'round.
William sends.