Thoughts on Cold Ranges from John Farnam
September 26th, 2006 by Syd
26 Sept 06
Comments on training for nuclear plant guards, from a friend in the industry:“
Our team recently engaged in a competition among other teams from a number of nuclear plants from around the Country. Courses of fire were simple, yet challenging, testing weapons skills and individual and team tactics. It was a good drill, and most guards displayed at least some acumen.
The unhappy part was gun handling. It was abysmal! Cavalier disregard for muzzle consciousness was standard procedure for some teams. I grew so weary of having rifles carelessly pointed at me that I left the area. I didn’t want to get hurt, and I surely didn’t want to be a witness!”
Comment: This is the depressing (and always covered up) legacy of cold ranges. Gun accidents that are merely postponed are not thus “prevented!” The routine handling of sterile guns engenders and perpetuates all manner of bad habits, habits that will inevitably cause accidents long after participants depart the “safe” range. Those who are unwilling to adopt hot ranges as the standard mode of training do their students no good service, as we see!
Comments on cold ranges, from a friend in the Philippines:
“Cold range philosophy has been standard here since we went soft in the 1970s. When a return to hot ranges is suggested, all kinds of fraudulent rationalizations are frantically served up in order to thoroughly refute any such idea. Curiously, “safety” is rarely mentioned. Political big shots don’t like the idea of we peons going armed, even on ranges. The only ones they want contentiously armed are their own bodyguards!
We do our best to teach people to be safe and competent with guns, with an eye toward our students some day being faced with a security emergency. Yet, cold ranges betray our lack of dedication. As with trap and skeet shooters (who, for example, insist on resting muzzles on their toes) cold-range training rapidly deteriorates into just a game, a diversion from more important activities, like closing the next deal.
On those rare occasions when anyone listens to me, I confront them with the inconvenient fact that cold ranges are little more than crystallized hypocrisy. We need to get back to the day when our students came first!”
John Farnam
Defense Training International, Inc.