Security Officers - Will Your Lack of Training Get You Killed?

In addition to running Windwarrior Protection, I work as an armed security officer. I often ask a question of my fellow officers - "Will your lack of training get you killed?". By this I am not implying a lack of initial training in order to qualify for the position. I am talking about a lack of ongoing training. My questions to my fellow officers include the following:

"How often do you go to the range and practice live fire?"
"How many times a day do you practice drawing and sighting your firearm?"
"How often do you conduct dry fire drills?"
"How often do you practice magazine changes, clearing stoppages/malfunctions, etc.?"
"How often do you observe the area around your post (or those in which you patrol) and think about tactical considerations such as kills zones, lines of fire, cover, etc?"
"How often do you use visualizations to mentally prepare for a firefight?"

Sadly, the answer to these questions is often "rarely" or worse yet "never".

I have seen officers with their spare magazines situated back-to-back (i.e. one magazine in reversed position) in their double-stack magazine carriers. In a firefight, grabbing an improperly positioned magazine will cost you precious seconds (or longer) while trying to flip the magazine around into the correct position for reloading. Assuming that you don't drop the damned thing in the first place, due to the loss of fine motor skills from the adrenaline pumping through you in a firefight. Does it look "cool"? Sure. Will it get you killed? Most likely.

I've often spoken to officers who've admitted that they've never thought about what to use as cover should an active shooter enter the building, how to draw the shooter into a kill zone, how they'll respond to the situation if they are patrolling in a vehicle, what approach they will use to reach the shooter if the shooter is on the other end of the building and the officer is on foot, etc. These are vital issues that must be thought out, planned, and trained in before an incident occurs. Lack of such preparation and training will likely get you killed.

Shooting is a frangible skill. In other words,  you must "use it or lose it". Going to the range once a year to fire your corroded firearm that hasn't been cleaned and lubricated (nor the ammo swapped out) since last year's qualification tells me you're not interested in surviving a firefight. Not conducting dry fire drills, magazine changes, stoppage clearances, etc. means you are not building the muscle memory and procedural memory you're going to need in a real firefight when your fine motor skills deteriorate.

Remember, in a firefight your heart rate can rise from a normal 60 beats per minute to 200 beats per minute or more in under a second. Under these conditions you will likely experience tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, a sense of slow motion, and a feeling of being on auto-pilot. This is not the time to be flipping around fancy-looking but improperly positioned magazines, thinking about where to take cover, working on controlling your trigger reset, or anything else. Your cognitive processing ability will be diminished by what we refer to as the "jangle effect". Simply put, your ability to think through solutions and use reasoning and problem solving skills is severely deteriorated.

I draw my firearm anywhere from 50 - 200 times per day. I practice sight alignment and dry fire drills, magazine changes, etc. every day. I go to the range as often as possible (at least every two weeks) and go through several boxes of ammo at different ranges (7' to 50+'). And I am always - ALWAYS - mentally drilling on what to do if a shooter comes in though the front door, from the cafeteria, in the parking lot, etc. Where is cover from which to return fire? How can I position myself so that I am behind cover and the shooter is in a kill zone?

These are the things security officers need to do every day, if they hope to survive a firefight. Therefore, I extend my question to all my readers - "Will your lack of training get you killed?"

I certainly hope not.