FIREARMS QUALIFICATIONS, EXCEPTIONAL MEANS, AND OODA LOOPS - 061

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transcript:

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau. Firearms qualifications, exceptional means and OODA Loops. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau. Welcome to episode 61 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime-related fiction. 

This week, I'm answering your questions about firearms qualifications for police officers when your suspect is terminally ill and what the heck does OODA mean? But before we get into that, as always, I need to thank my Golden Shield patrons on Patreon, especially Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher of dharmakelleher.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of Crimibox and Larry Darter for their support. 

I'd also like to thank all of my coffee club patrons for their support every month and a special shout-out to Amanda Feyerbend for upping her monthly pledge. Your support keeps the lights on in the bureau and you can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode by going to the show notes at writersdetective.com/61. To learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. 

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This week's first question comes from P.G. Kassel and you can check out his author website at pgkassel.com. P.G. writes, "In a recent podcast, you discussed the firearm qualification requirements for police officers. As a gun enthusiast, I'd be interested to know specifically what an officer needs to do in order to qualify or re-qualify. Thanks so much for all your time in providing truly valuable information."

Thanks a lot P.G. Well, California requires yearly qualifications for firearms and it's really up to the agency to define their own standards. The basic Police Academy requires several different qualifications for handgun and shotgun, which include day and night scenarios.

Some of those are designed to demonstrate basic firearms competency and then others are actual combat courses. They're testing for different things, but in the academy, you go through a lot of different shooting scenarios. 

The big difference being that basic competency is demonstrated by standing in front of a paper target at a designated distance and then drawing and firing in a specified timeframe. 

Combat shoots are dynamic and they involve moving and shooting and I should mention that we also qualify with our rifles which are AR-15 or M4 variants. We qualify with our tasers and our less lethal weapons like bean bag shotguns or the 40 millimeter foam rounds that fit in a grenade launcher.

At my department, the stand in front of your paper target and shoot is what we call our badge shoot and we do that once per year in accordance with the state minimums and it's how we earn or lose our marksmanship pins for the year. 

Those are the pins that we wear on our uniform...                                                                                                                             Continue reading...