My Life in Law Enforcement: A True Life Story #11 Firearms

Hey guys! It's been few days since my last installment. The last block of instruction that I covered was "Subject Control" https://steemit.com/story/@bluelightbandit/my-life-in-law-enforcement-a-true-life-story-10-subject-control-awkwardness and talking about the instructor created two sub-chapters that you can find here https://steemit.com/story/@bluelightbandit/my-experience-with-some-bad-cops-a-true-story-chapter-10-a and also here https://steemit.com/story/@bluelightbandit/blackballed-by-the-cops-a-true-life-story-10-b

Today we will talk about my favorite block of instruction, can you guess what it is? If you've been following me for a while you should know... We finally get to shoot some guns, yeah! Firearms has always been a passion of mine since I was a little kid. My dad was a cop and exposed me to firearms at a young age and I just took it and ran with it.

As I mentioned in previous chapters, cadets were required at the time to buy their own gear, including a gun. The gun that I chose to use in class was my Generation 1 Glock 17 9mm. That's right, the very first generation of Glocks from the 90's. As you can see in the picture, I didn't have any night sights installed and the gun was just bone stock, except for the slip on Hogue rubber grip that you see.

I was the only cadet using a Glock that I can remember. At this time, Glock was still having to prove themselves to the world and there were still many non-believers. Beretta's were popular in the class for obvious reasons, they have a great reputation and are used by several law enforcement agencies and military branches. This Beretta pictured is my personal gun, it's a Model 96 Police .40 caliber. I was issued this gun when I was a patrol sergeant and also took it to Specialized Firearm's Instructor School. When the department bought new service weapons, I bought my old issued gun, which is the one you're looking at.

The Glock pictured and the Beretta pictured are two guns out of my collection that I hope to never have to get rid of, they hold a significant amount of sentimental value to me.

The very first day of firearms actually sucked ass. We spent the entire day in the classroom going over safety, rules, laws and regulations. We also spent a lot of time going over the nomenclature of firearms, different types of ammunition, shooting stances and flashlight techniques. As a matter of fact, it was more than one day we spent in the classroom but I can't remember exactly how many it was. This was pure torture to me! I was already familiar with much that was being covered and I was so ready to hit the range!

Finally, RANGE DAY!

I was so excited but also really nervous at the same time. Several respected instructor's were there along with high ranking officer's from other departments acting as scouts more or less. Of course we just didn't start shooting, we had to go over all of the rules again, fill out paperwork and then run laps...Yeah, we had to run laps before we done anything because we were still trying to get ready for the POPAT course.

Show time, my man! It's go time and my nerves are jacked! I was anxious to shoot well but I was also trying hard not to be "that guy" that discharged his weapon when he/she wasn't supposed to (yeah, that really happens). I wanted to stand out from the rest of the cadets and be noticed by the scouts. We ran through a basic police qualifying course first off and the Bandito was on his mark. Right out of the gate I scored 100%. My group was extremely tight in the center of the standard B-27 target and everyone was impressed, including the scouts. Unfortunately, the rest of my classmates didn't put in the extra effort that I did with marksmanship and was struggling desperately. One person beside of me actually shot my target by mistake. The shot wasn't in the scoring range and was printed outside of the silhouette. I was soooo pissed because it looked like I threw a shot. Luckily the instructor that was scoring the targets was smart enough to know that it wasn't my shot that landed so far off target. And when the person beside of me had less than 50 rounds on his target...well, there ya go. It was impossible to count the holes on my target where I had chewed the center out so much and kept all of the other rounds closely grouped within. You can believe me when I say that I tried my best to get the last lane on the range so I would only have one person beside of me. I either did that or I tried to get in between two better shooters. At graduation, the cadet with the highest firearms scores would receive an award and you can bet money that I wanted that award more than anything!

After shooting several thousands of rounds, we got to do something called "policing the range". This is where every cadet formed a line shoulder to shoulder, got down on our hands and knees and crawled across the range, picking up every piece of brass (spent casings) that we could see. We did this every time we were at the range...uggh on that.

Starting off, I was really pleased with how things were going. I had a couple of cadets that were pretty good shots and posed a threat to snatching my award from me. You'll have to wait to see if they did or not. This is a good stopping point for today. In my next installment I will finish up the firearms block and list the shooting sequence for the police qualification course. If you want to start from the beginning chapters, I will post links to them at the bottom of this page. Thanks and have a great day! Hive account@bluelightbandit