Thinking Man's Corner

Article By Sam H.

After 20 years as a Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor and a veteran of the force, I’ve seen a persistent, frustrating disconnect in our community. We spend thousands on the latest optics and “gucci” duty gear, yet we often steer our officers away from the most accessible, high-volume stress test available: practical shooting competition.

The Myth of the “Well-Rounded” Instructor

In the training world, we often see instructors who claim to be “well-rounded” masters of the craft, yet they have either never stepped foot on a USPSA range or have only attended a handful of matches years ago.

True mastery requires a willingness to be a student. If an instructor is unwilling to put their skills on the clock in front of their peers and the public, are they truly well-rounded? Or are they simply comfortable? There is a profound difference between being a “square-range king” and someone who can execute at a high level when the buzzer goes off and the stage plan starts to fall apart. To those skeptics: you do not need a race gun to be relevant. You can be incredibly competitive and beat the majority of the field using your standard duty gun and patrol rig. You just need the discipline to get your draws and reloads down to a consistent 1.50 seconds or better.

The Internal Audit: Why the Resistance?

Before dismissing USPSA, every instructor must perform an honest internal audit.

• The Ego Trap: The single greatest barrier for many instructors is the fear of exposure. Competition is the ultimate lie detector. If you attend one match, perform poorly, and decide the competition is “flawed” rather than acknowledging a gap in your own mechanics, your ego is winning, and your students are losing.
• The Echo Chamber: Are you repeating outdated dogma from an instructor who never left the square range? If you claim competition “trains bad habits” without ever having tested that theory yourself, you are choosing comfort over professional evolution.

Leading from the Front: Sharpening the Blade Together

The most effective instructors I know are the ones who are still “in the hunt.” When an instructor goes to a match alongside their students, it sends a powerful message: The learning never stops. Competition shouldn’t be viewed as a “game” separate from duty; it should be viewed as a laboratory. It is where you and your students can:

1. Diagnose Flaws Instantly: Using the Hit Factor (HF) metric (Points  Divided by Time), you can see exactly where an officer is outrunning their vision.
2. Master the Duty Rig: USPSA provides a high-repetition administrative stress test. If you can’t master your duty holster or an emergency reload under the pressure of a match, you won’t do it better in a dark alley.
3. Inoculate Against Stress: The buzzer provides a consistent stressor that forces you to manage performance anxiety, a vital cognitive skill for any LEO.

The Final Challenge

Stop discouraging the one training outlet that will truly stress-test your officers’ perishable skills. As instructors, we have a mandate to prepare our officers for chaos, not just compliance.

Show up to a match. Wear your duty rig. If you are beaten by a civilian club shooter with superior vision and movement, don’t get defensive just get to work. Are you prepared to let your students enter a critical incident with less dynamic preparation than a hobbyist who spends their weekends on the range?

To find the rules to a USPSA match click on this link. https://uspsa.org

To find a match click on this link for Practiscore. https://practiscore.com

Leo, if you don’t mind, check those links for me to make sure they work.