People have always done stupid things. That’s a fact of life. However, thanks to the creature that is the Internet, the stupid things that people do now travel around the globe in minutes. Also, it doesn’t help when the people who are in charge of social media accounts are so ignorant that they don’t even know when they’re posting images of people doing stupid things.
This week we were all treated to the image of Cdr. Cameron Yaste, Captain of the USS John S. McCain, firing an M4 rifle onto which a Trijicon VCOG scope had been mounted backwards. This image didn’t come from some sailor’s mobile phone, it was proudly posted on the official US Navy Instagram account as a part of their ongoing, desperate recruiting campaign.
What started as a meme, soon gained so much traction that it became a news story on the New York Post.
Let’s not just pick on our fellow shipmates. A few years back when the US Army decided to spend a half-billion dollars of US taxpayer money on new pistols, the Army’s press corps and social media folks were uploading images of Army Officers “testing” the new pistols and it looked like they all just got off of the short bus from West Point. The internet was quick to point out that the officers looked like rank amateurs and fools. Many, but not all of the pictures were removed.
In the case of our fearless Naval Commander, what might be just as bad as the fact that he was shooting though a variable powered scope that had been mounted backwards, is the fact that an enlisted person first set up the rifle and then handed it to the skipper to try out. We might safely assume that the rifle wasn’t so equipped by someone from the engine room, but by a Master at Arms, a person whose job it is to understand how firearms work.
There have been numerous other similar instances, but let’s take a moment to consider how our “brave men and women in uniform” can be so pathetic when it comes to the handling of small arms.
Substandard and Outdated Training
During the failed Global War on Terror, I was a part of training cadre of combat veterans who were brought in to get Naval personnel who would be deployed to surface positions and land combat (SeaBees, Small Boat Teams, Chaplains Aids, Intelligence Analysts, Divers, Corpsmen, etc.) up to speed in regards to small arms and tactics.
When we stood up the Navy’s Expeditionary Combat Skills school the curriculum that we were handed by the folks in Virginia was outdated, filled with contradictory information, and seemed like most of it had been cut and pasted from old Army and Marine Corps manuals.
Our first task was to shake out the curriculum by running it live. Then we submitted numerous fixes, upgrades, and improvements. After a couple of months, we had a training curriculum of which we could be proud. However that result is more rare than a unicorn munching on four-leaf clovers or a 2nd Lieutenant who knows how to use a map and a compass.
That standard for the conventional military is to just do what everyone else has been doing for years, decades, or even centuries without ever considering whether what they’re doing is still relevant, realistic, or practical. Naturally, Special Operations Units are the exceptions to this because they’re smaller and mostly autonomous, though there can still be some “3-Ring Binder Worship” there as well.
The problem with substandard and outdated training is that the people who are the recipients of such do not know that’s the case. They believe the military’s firearms training is the ultimate and best available. If they find themselves in a position to teach others, they’ll fall back on what they were taught believing it to be sacred and unquestionably correct.
Few men who ever find themselves in a training unit are ever there long enough to make a positive, effective change. Worse still, almost no one wants to. To question an outdated and substandard curriculum is akin to heresy or sacrilege. Officers and staff NCOs who don’t want to make waves or stick their necks out will dismiss the suggestions for changes as “unnecessary” or they fall back on the old reliable “that’s unsafe” excuse.
On a personal note, when I deployed to Saudi Arabia with the 6th Marines in 1990, negligent discharges with all manner of firearms, often resulting in severe injuries and death, were rampant. The command structure scrambled to try and figure out why it was happening and to stop it by punishing offenders. No one ever stood up and said, this is happening because our training is crap and doesn’t reflect reality.
Purchasing Your Way Around Training
Another big reason why our troops seem to suck with small arms is the fact that the Generals and Admirals in Washington, DC would rather spend billions on new toys than invest in rigorous training. The United States Army famously removed the ubiquitous grenade throwing qualification from Army Basic Training because their new recruits were too weak and uncoordinated. The Army still issues grenades to the troops, but they are supposed to get the skill to use them somewhere else. They also dropped the requirement to successfully complete the land navigation course.
So, how is the Army going to fix weak and uncoordinated troops? Spend more money on toys, of course. The Army has allotted $331 million to purchase the “Next Generation Squad Weapons” and newer, more expensive ammunition. The new rifles and squad automatic weapons are larger and heavier than the M4 or the M249 SAW. So the new troops are weaker and more uncoordinated, but the solution is buy them bigger and heavier guns and ammo. Okay, got it.
We used to teach fundamental marksmanship and instill the discipline to use it. Marine recruits didn’t leave Parris Island until they could hit a human silhouette at 500 yards using standard iron sights on their M16 rifles. Today, we’re spending $3000 a piece for magnified optics that we are discovering that the troops don’t even know how to install on a rifle. “The troops can’t hit the broadside of a barn? No problem, spend a few more millions on scopes for them. That’ll fix it.”
Is There Hope?
I know I paint a pretty dismal picture here, however, I make no apologies for pointing it out. For at least a dozen years, the United States military has been deliberately purged of hard-charging self-starters who loved their country and were proud to serve. First the officer corps was scrubbed of alpha males and replaced by politicians in uniform and quislings. Then the seasoned NCO corps was purged by politically correct, woke BS and orders from above to kick out anyone who refused to take the Kung Flu shot.
Gender sensitivity training and safety standdowns to address the alleged threat of “white nationalism” have replaced the desire to train men to do exactly what a military is supposed to do for its nation — kill people and break things.
While our enemies undergo rigorous training, our Army is more concerned with Heather has Two Mommies and putting drag queens into officer uniforms. Be assured that the Russians and Chinese view our modern military as a joke.
What can be done? You, the American citizen, can work to rid the nation of the corruption that has infected our capital. You can vote out the criminal politicians who have deliberately turned our military into a worldwide laughing stock. Short of that, if we stay on the path we are currently on, there’s no hope the future of our military or our country.
Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.
37 Responses
Once upon a time rifle marksmanship in the Army and Marines was a big deal. I went to One Station Training as a Scout in 1985 and we lived and breathed the rifle, land navigation and all the basic soldier skills for 14 weeks. At the end, in a graduating platoon of 24 (we started with 31), 20 of us shot Expert and the other 4 shot Sharpshooter. All of us that graduated were able to throw grenades, pass land navigation, and hump a ruck plus full gear 15 miles in 4 hours. When we got to our duty units, we all discovered that was the bare beginning and we had to get even harder and tougher.
Fast forward 40 years and we have soldiers that have no clue how to hold and shoot a pistol, mount an optic on a rifle properly, pass land navigation, or throw a grenade. The issue, as you rightly point out, is not that they don’t have the newest and best toys. The issue is that sergeants aren’t teaching privates fundamentals. I bet that Thursday Sergeant’s Time is all about DEI and Two Mommies and all that crap. When I was a buck sergeant, my troops knew Thursday morning was going to be soldier fundamentals, most likely in full gear in the local training area for 5 hours.
We have to fix this or we will absolutely continue to lose wars.
“Once upon a time rifle marksmanship in the Army and Marines was a big deal. I went to One Station Training as a Scout in 1985 and we lived and breathed the rifle, land navigation and all the basic soldier skills for 14 weeks.”
The only good thing is, Eric, you and and a few hundred thousand of your fellow similarly-trained troops will be able to re-build those ranks if needed in a few months. It won’t help the existing troops much, but the ones following will have those skills.
Not being able to toss a grenade puzzles me, I wonder if something else is going on, like they fear grenade attacks like Sweden gets in the poor immigrant neighborhood bars…
Pretty bad when the rag heads have more practice tossing rocks of the same size and heft of a grenade before they get to toss a live grenade than our own troops. I retired from active duty a quarter of a century ago. I wouldn’t have any problem making a squads collect a couple dozen hand grenade sized rocks for each of them, making them haul them to the range, and then standing down range making them chuck them at me. And I get to chuck them back at them until they get it right.
I agree 100%, but want to point out that even if the destruction of military effectiveness (in the form of less training, fewer ships, fewer planes, a pathological focus on DIE and using the military for Leftist social engineering, a lack of focus on competence and lethality, and Communist-style political purges, all of which in turn contribute to abysmal recruiting) were stopped tomorrow, and the military returned to its traditional expectations and the mechanisms for meeting them, we still would not win any wars, because, like the rest of the West, we have lost the will to fight and will to win, and now all our enemies know it.
They know they only need not to surrender and supply images of civilian wretchedness, and in short time at least half the country will be calling for the exits.
We exist in a thoroughly feminized, decadent society, which is so removed from the gritty reality of daily survival, that we suppose our decisions have no consequences. We’re on a permanent holiday from history. Just look at the two most recent major deployments of the military in 2024: a humanitarian intervention in Haiti and building a pier for a supremacist terror army. We wouldn’t dream of employing
Our politicians overcommit and underfund. And they as a group are fundamentally unable to tolerate civilian casualties of the kind and number that are unavoidable in any winning war effort, especially against an enemy who uses “civilian” casualties as a war tactic.
Just stop and think though: we have in the last 70 years created a standard—for the West only—that any civilian casualties are unacceptable. In so doing, we have turned the logic of war on its head. From this inverted position, we are unable to aim straight through to our war objectives.
Whereas throughout history the home army sought to minimize casualties in its civilian population, such as by evacuating them, provisioning bomb shelters, sounding air raid sirens, fielding missiles defense systems, laying in supplies, and so forth, in modern wars against the West, home armies operate in a continuum between disregard for, and intentional creation of, civilian casualties. And the Western states through their armies attempt to minimize civilian casualties for the opponents, including by restricting the rules of engagement, avoiding obvious strategic targets, and in general exposing their own soldiers to increased danger. But Western states don’t stop at that. They also lead whole-of-society efforts, including via non-military government agencies, NGO charities, religious organizations, and individual charitable giving and volunteering, to coordinate and marshal aid and other forms of relief for the opponents’ peoples and infrastructure. We appear to have internalized the lesson that the fault for any war lies in us, and an enemy is just a friend to whom we haven’t yet been conciliatory enough. We want to understand our opponents’ grievances against us. Since we hate ourselves and our own cultures (at least among the Western elites who call the shots) we are perfectly disposed to validate the hate of our enemies. In the new-age guidance to win the hearts and minds of the enemy, we have forgotten or intentionally ignore every rule of warfare developed from common sense and battlefield results since human pre-history.
In this dynamic, where the Western states care more about civilian casualties than casualties of their own soldiers and put themselves in the position of trying to prevent enemy civilian casualties while the opposing armies try to generate them, an insurmountable bar to victory is erected. We allow ourselves to be manipulated in the most obvious, base way, and then congratulate ourselves in inevitable defeat on our exquisitely sensitive humanity as the enemy civilian population, its obstructive role satisfied, sinks back into stone-age chauvinist obscurantism.
It’s worse than fighting with one or even two hands tied behind your back. Instead it’s more like punching yourself in the head until you score a knockout, while your opponent cheers.
What has the West done to help Israel achieve victory against a terror army that invaded it and took its citizens captive? Constantly grouse, lead chorus of disapproval in the media, set impossible, illogical standards only for Israel and the IDF, demand nothing of the side that started and is abjectly losing the war, and immediately organize international relief for the enemy “civilians”—a non-trivial number of whom directly participated in the invasion, its aftermath and/or the subsequent war effort, and a huge majority of whom support, even celebrate, the terror army and its actions. Relief that is immediately diverted—why this a bad word here because it implies that the intention was to keep the aid out of the terror army’s claws—and which is a pillar of the terror army’s continuing capacity to fight through what should be a complete siege, and thus a major reason why the war continues.
In this we have explicitly adopted the logic that, despite all evidence the contrary, there is a thick, impenetrable wall distinguishing enemy civilians from enemy soldiers. This conceit has been developed to such an extent that we are mentally unable to associate the enemy civilians with the enemy army—that is to say, that they are not our enemies at all, but rather our teammates, who must be held in a sort of captivity against their wills by the enemy army, and, in this sense, we are actually on the same side—their side—of the war. With such logic, of course we want to help our comrades under occupation by a ruthless enemy who compels them to celebrate—with wild uulations—enemy successes on the battlefield, such as the killing of Western civilians—ah, ah, ah there! Don’t tarry at that point and ponder the asymmetry too long—better not to recognize the asymmetry at all: that way lies the madness of common sense, which would indict and explode in Planck time the whole mistaken notion of the new, modern Western way of [losing] war.
Thus the unique conceit in the modern West that any type or amount of suffering—no matter how minor or incidental—imposed intentionally, or even accidentally, on enemy “civilian” populations is an unacceptable moral atrocity. Never mind that a nation’s military is fielded and maintained by its population, and, especially in democracies, reflects the will of the people. A form of that argument was, and is, used post-9/11 to justify terrorist attacks on American civilians. But apparently the same woke set that excuses terror attacks on civilians as righteous responses to their voting for policies uncongenial to said terrorists and their supporters, also argues, out of the other sides of their mouths, that any cost to the enemy civilian population, even in a democratic little terrorstan, represents unfair and illegal “collective punishment”.
This is the idea that it is theoretically possible to fight a war under antiseptic, hermetic conditions, with civilians in the theater of battle going about their normal lives, entirely separate and parallel to the war. And that the activity of said unperturbed civilians (socioeconomic, intellectual, patriotic, religious, supportive, etc) is orthogonal to the great question of which side will win. The belief is either that civilians, qua civilians, can have no impact on their army’s morale or materiel, and thus, disconnected from the army in the field, are not just immoral but illogical, non-strategic targets, or that, even if it might be true that the civilian population voted for the policy of war, gives aid and spiritual succor to their soldiers, and is fundamentally the platform on which the army rests, an indivisible infrastructure inextricably bound up with the question of victory, it nevertheless remains impermissible to place them in harms way, whether by intention, neglect, or forced by the cynical maneuver of the enemy army (viz., human shields and the Hamas Way of War). In such a calculus, we are told, Western states must play by a rarefied, unique, unequal, demonstrably futile set of rules, with an unbroken string of defeats to its credit, even with full knowledge that the enemy is exploiting those rules to manipulate them, and even with the recognition that the rules create conditions for victory that are unachievable and as such guarantee that each and every war will be lost—but worse than surrendering right away, they will first expend prodigious sums of gold and the treasure of their armies’ blood re-demonstrating the truth of that guarantee.
The concept, then, that the collateral damage of civilian war casualties implicates military strategies and tactics as immoral collective punishment and, moreover, illegal (per the nebulous and selectively enforced concept of international law) despite—or, in full candor regarding the woke Western gentry class—*because* that renders achieving victory impossible, has left Western nations in a position where they spend a great deal of money on militaries that have no latitude for maneuver, which cannot act toward victory, and military engagements they cannot hope to win.
It’s also a shorthand way of explaining that one is an idiot, or wants his own country to lose a particular war. For—read your Strauss or Clausewitz or even Polybius or JC (the one being rendered to, not the one instructing on the rendering) or Sherman or Sun Tzu or a hundred other generals, rulers, and political theorists—the point of war is to break the will of your enemy. War is terrible: the most terrible thing in human civilization (though its existence is an ontological fact of the universe and not peculiar to human minds). The goal must be to accomplish that breaking of the enemy’s will as quickly—and thus as cheaply, in terms of blood and treasure, and thus as rationally and wisely—as possible. Anything that delays the visiting of the fatal blow, the coup de grâce, is folly of the highest order. But the West has institutionalized this error and elevated it to a hallmark of its method of war. Thus has the West constructed an impregnable fortress of abnegation that traps its war aims in an underground labyrinth of wrong-way tunnels, none of which lead out of the fortress, through which it fumbles it the dark, afraid to strike a match and behold the self-built prison in which it toils. Worse yet, we’ve given the blueprints for the fortress to the enemy.
At this point, a better metaphor may be the tribulation of doing the same paint-by-numbers scene over and over, forever, as in a scene out of Dante’s Inferno, as Western organizations duly note they are being manipulated by the enemy, yet go right on being manipulable, and never achieving the mental liberation to reject the paradigm, to tear up the scoresheet that has them wailing dirges of defeat.
(Sure, on the margins the vagaries of large scale human conflict entail imprecisions, miscalculations, confounding variables, exceptions, and uncertainties about the past, present, and future that make fidelity to certainty—e.g., around what is quickest or least cost—a fraught principle. But as a general rule, ending a war quickest *is* least cost and therefore best.)
Of course, we don’t hold our enemies to the same standard, which, if it is a universal moral imperative, we really aught to do. But no, our enemies are free to attack civilians, even intentionally, and this is expected and tolerated. The notion seems to be that we deserve such punishment because of a long and unbroken history of sins against our enemies. That is to say, they hate us for good reason, so the least we could do is accept that their consign anger must be vindicated in whatever form they choose to impose.
But perhaps we should chart a different path, one where we admit that this way of war is a dead end, and then proceed in full clarity to choose either to retain our unworkable principles, but at least choose not to enter into voluntary wars we know we will lose, or to return to the past where we hated war, abhored civilian casualties, but were mature enough to confront the reality that sometimes both are incapable, and the best way to minimize both is to win our wars with ruthless and relentless efficiency, which is something like the opposite of the “civilian” “protecting” policy under which we labor, provoking our enemies and prolonging our wars against them.
While I was only national guard the only real training I had (Obama era) regarding marksmanship and land nav (thankfully had a lot of that from elsewhere) was during basic/ait and premobalization. The 2 week annual training typically had a laser training the drill before then we do the qualification shoots. We were encouraged to work on marksmanship outside of the army as yes we did indeed have the proto dei training and endless sexual harassment presentations. I can only hope active duty had more real training but I often hear they had it even worse (don’t get to say fuck it and go back to life after the weekend a month)
Obviously what I’m saying here would emphatically NOT apply to the Marines–and hopefully not to the Army–but…back in the 1980s and 1990s when I worked for Naval Air Systems Command, I worked alongside naval officers, all of who had the pistol and rifle qualification ribbons on their blouses, but freely admitted that that was the last time they actually fired a rifle or a pistol. Indeed the issue was highlighted in several articles that appeared in Proceedings at the time, questioning the capability of the Navy to defend itself against terrorists while tied up at the pier. Clearly the problem has only gotten worse, but it’s not new.
Utah resident Dave Spark’s YouTube channel recently spent a day on a Coast Guard firing range.
…where the targets were outboard boat motors. Still a cool gun video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8p8YxVgm5s
Glad I aint in the military, have fun and good luck in ukraine the middle east and taiwan everyone else, i am gonna stay home and eat pizza
I’m glad you aren’t in the military, too. You’re the kind of self-entitled slacker that would require a medic to save, or an MP to guard after wandering off doing the Bowe Bergdahl dance.
And youre the kind of retard who dies in a foreign war so senators can increase their defense stock prices
“And youre the kind of retard who dies in a foreign war…”
Says the gutless retard without the balls to defend our freedom.
Leave, and don’t come back.
Ahh…and the brand new SNW has now crossed the rubicon and started Fight Club.
It was inevitable that seeds of TTAG were going to one day start growing here.
“It was inevitable that seeds of TTAG were going to one day start growing here.”
Was that in any way a surprise, Haz?
The same people, the same conflicts, to think any other way was unrealistic…
Defend our freedom from who? Countries on the other side of the world who pose no real threat so senators and bankers and ungrateful foreigners get their kickbacks?
No, drink bleach faggot not dying overseas in a pointless war because dipshits like you are stuck in a 1980 mindset
I’ll be that guy:
What’s wrong with the way they’re holding the pistols?
My best guess is finger on front of trigger guard. My impression is that this is generally frowned upon, but it is also a “rule” that some individuals break with success. Or it could be something completely different and obvious that I am oblivious to…
If I’m not mistaken, Lena Miculek shoots with her finger in front of the trigger guard. She’s a pro shooter. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of her dad.
Some trigger guards are designed for people that shoot that way. The M17 is one of those pistols. I’m not saying that’s the best way to shoot.
The way that works best to you is the right way to shoot.
I’m damn sure not gonna tell an armed woman to do much of anything except to politely ask if she will say yes to a date… 😉
The pistol is too close to their faces and might hit them when they recoil. Their arms should be extended or nearly so in order to better control the recoil and get a faster reset for follow on shots. Their heads should be lower to the ground as to be a smaller target. They should be using the provided sandbag as a rest or at least as cover. That’s why they are there.
Thank you John.
1: Yes, I have my arms more extended when I shoot a pistol. Good point
2: I would think that if your;’e using a pistol, a frame that lets you be more accurate is more important than “lower target”. Since hte shorter rrange of pistols means you[‘re only using them when the enemy is close, and threatening to overrun you
3: Yes, I can see the gross stupidity of having the sandbags there and not using them.
Yes accuracy is important but there is always a compromise between accuracy and avoiding being hit by the enemy who presumably is shooting back and not standing there motionless like a paper target. I would always sacrifice some accuracy for survivability.
But the reality is that this kind of shooting would probably never happen in combat. Go watch the scene from “Saving Private Ryan” when Sgt Horvath is confronted by a German soldier and they both race to draw their pistols and get the first shot off. That would be much more realistic.
A Master at Arms in the Navy is basically a police officer, the person that maintains the ships small arms is a Gunners Mate.
I saw an article the other day stating the Marines have updated their shooting training for the first time in 100 years. There wasn’t much info in the article other than they seem to be emphasizing shooting faster. I hope it’s been thought through. I went thru Marine rifle training in the early 70s at MCRD where he had to hit a 12 inch circle at 500 yards with iron sights on the M14. Meanwhile our brothers in Vietnam were using the M16. I always thought it was strange that they taught us to shoot with a rifle we’d never see after bootcamp.
I six years as an air wing reserve we went to the range exactly one time to qualify with the .45 automatic. Never saw a rifle after boot camp. I suppose maintaining aircraft in Alameda, CA with summer trips to Fallon, NV or Cherry Point, NC didn’t require us to be expert riflemen.
Is it possible that the rifle in the Navy picture was purposely set up wrong and then given to the commander?
It’s probably 50/50:
1: Diverse Gunner’s Mate who doesn’t knwo how to use guns, either
2: “Captain” who sucks, and therefore has crew who want to set him up to look like the idiot he is
There was a time I wouldn’t have believed option 1. Then we had to deal with a defective M2 (out of time would have out of battery detonation) that the armorer eventually sent back “fixed” (still out of time) and on another maintenance cycle sent back with a scratched out serial number and a new one stamped on…… still out of time. May have sent my last PMCS sheet back with less than appropriate verbage as I ETSed.
This is why Army scouts, tankers, and infantry who operate an M2 all know how to set headspace and timing themselves. Or at least in my era, we did.
Can I get some blue cheese with that wing?
There is no quick fix unless you can cut leadership clear to the bone, otherwise, the stench will stay in the promotion boards for decades. Even if it were possible to cut clear to the bone it takes years and competent leadership to grow new leaders.
Harsh (physical and mental) standards, harsher punishment for failure (easier demotion especially in the officer and upper enlisted) and easy exit options (quit on the spot). Wouldn’t help with stupid but it may clear lazy, shammers, and the fearful. Unfortunately you are absolutely correct on rebuilding, that would take a full generation in any realistic timeline.
Having previously grown up on a California farm, I went through Army Basic Training in 1963, firing one of those superb M-1 rifles. At the end of the course, I qualified as an Expert Rifleman. When the drill sergeant handed out the badge, he asked “Aren’t you glad the Army taught you how to shoot?”, and I could truthfully tell him “Sergeant, my mother taught me how to shoot!”. I never did beat her at a target-shooting contest.
Not surprised that the Navy had outdated small arms training curriculum. Realistically, very few sailors will ever see a situation where they will use small arms. Ex: I worked the engine room, and I don’t recall ANY engineering personnel ever assigned to the ships security team. The security team were the only individuals I ever saw that even touched a weapon (small anrms) onboard.
In my 6 years in the Navy I only fired one weapon – dual 50 cal machine gun, for one very short burst. I tell everyone (jokingly) that it was a perfect score “Aimed at the ocean, all rounds hit the water”
This is disgusting. If you wear the uniform, you need to know how to use small arms, march while carrying your gear, and do basic first aid. I don’t care which service, officer or enlisted, or MOS – those are basic military skills. Small arms skills should be qualified at least once a year. Anything less is unacceptable.
BTW, that is a 9mm pistol, a round with low recoil. If recoil causes the pistol to hit him in the face, he won’t do it again. Notice how the sandbags are arranged in a line? I’m thinking the sandbags are there to denote the shooting lanes, not to use as a rest. Notice pistol shooter’s rank insignia – he is an E7.
It’s very hard, if not impossible, to vote the criminals out of office when they’ve subverted the election systems in all the relevant states, AND subverted the courts in those same states. That’s why Trump lost 2020, and virtually none of the cases that actually had hard evidence, never even saw an investigation, much less the inside of a courtroom.
First problem is that the brass and civies are terrified of having military armed outside of actual combat.
Frankly, I think every member should have to fire 50 to 100 rounds, and qualify, on a monthly basis bare minimum, or be discharged. (I’d really like at least 100 rounds weekly, but they’d be screaming bloody murder, not to mention that they probably don’t have enough or big enough ranges anymore.)
CHP officers are required to qualify at the range every month to retain their patrol certs. They have the highest hit percentage of departments that report data to the feds, of 25%. The rest of the country runs about 18% hits. BTW, those numbers include all deliberately fired rounds, such as dogs, wildlife, miscreants, and suicide. If they hit someone in a toe, that counts! And, they bitch and moan about having to go to the range, and wait until the end of the month to go, and for a day or so we wouldn’t see much actual patrol activity. The rest of the country may only hit the range for qualification once a year.
“First problem is that the brass and civvies are terrified of having military armed outside of actual combat.”
This is one of the reasons that persuaded me to not join up when I was a teen. (High draft number, so I had a choice) My sisters and I learned to shoot when we were single digit ages. That ability seems to run in the family, as we are good at it.
Did a single tour in the USAF in the early ’60’s, shot an M1 Carbine at Basic, and another M1 Carbine 2 years later for a requal:
Shot EXPERT never having touched a firearm in the interim. Now, I’m an FFL and I don’t have time to go to the range, but I’ve got a room full of guns to choose from.