[cciman]

There's standing on flat ground, calmly shooting at paper/steel/inanimate objects- practicing the standard Kata......

then there is standing/laying/kneeling in the dark, on uneven terrain, behind low cover, heart racing, breathing fast, bleeding, wearing body armor, 4# of headgear, upside down, sideways, being shot or rushed at by the target...thumbs (and trigger feel) are the last thing you should be thinking about.

MMA fights look nothing like a Bruce Lee, or John Wick movie.

 

[SargeMO]

Nice to see that article appear again.

Also, it would probably surprise a lot of today's public shooting enthusiasts to learn how many of the 20th century's pioneering 'fighting handgun' shooters came from within LE.

Then again, having cops form and join Pistol Teams wasn't a rare thing in those days, either.

Comes to that, leather holster design was heavily influenced and driven by cops and former cops in those days, too.

I didn't read the thread but wanted to post a reply anyway

When I went through KCPD Academy (1980) they were still awarding gold NRA Marksmanship Pins, which at the time were approved uniform insignia for metro departments.

We were slaves to the X ring at 50 yards, many of the new breed are slaves to the shot timer at 50 feet. I think both skillsets are worth learning.

 

[fastbolt]

I didn't read the thread but wanted to post a reply anyway

When I went through KCPD Academy (1980) they were still awarding gold NRA Marksmanship Pins, which at the time were approved uniform insignia for metro departments.

We were slaves to the X ring at 50 yards, many of the new breed are slaves to the shot timer at 50 feet. I think both skillsets are worth learning.

Yeah, we still had a Shooting Medal Program when I was hired in '82. The agency Pistol Team had folded a couple years before I was hired, though. We still had a lot of the people around who had shot on the team, and most of them were among the FTU's instructor cadre. We picked up at least a couple guys who had been on different agency pistol teams, of the same 'vintage', too. Those were the times.

When it was becoming too difficult for the average agency gun-toter (who wasn't interested in guns and shooting) to qualify for more than the lowest Marksman badge, lack of interest seemed to begin occurring. Then, the final straw that killed it was eventually going from Scored quals to Pass/Fail quals. While there were still some guys and gals who had earned the older Marksman, Sharpshooter and Expert badge pins to be seen on uniforms as the 90's was almost done, the Master badge pin (we didn't use Distinguished Expert, for whatever the reason) was increasingly rare to see. Increasingly more of the people coming onto the range training staff hadn't even been around for the badge pin program, too. Sad, really.

I wish I still had my original Master badge pin, which I first earned in the waning years of our service revolver days, shooting .357MAG. However, someone who had lost theirs, and wanted it on their Class A uniform for an official photo-op, talked me into loaning him mine, rather than going out to the range to get one from the office. I knew he'd qualified and maintained his Master pin status for many years, and acquiesced to loaning him mine, instead of telling him to drive his ass out to the range and ask for a replacement. No good deed, though, right? ...

Naturally, after repeated excuses of one sort or another the guy never returned my badge pin. When I went to the range office to get it replaced by the guy running the FTU, I discovered that only 1 Master badge pin remained from the long-canceled program. I retired with it. Sigh.