Sure-Fire school

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Anyone know anyone who's been to the low-light school from Sure-Fire? What have you heard about it. I sure would like my department to send somebody so I could learn more about night shooting. Must be nice...

[John from Maryland]

I went to the "Officer Survival in Low Light Instructor" course a couple of months back. You'd find the training worth your while, but they do not heavily emphasize night shooting techniques. The training centers on awareness of light, team tactics, communication, and aggressive movement.

If I recall correctly, we were only on the live fire range one or two nights. While shooting positions were mentioned, they were not really stressed (apart from the need to be able to shoot a long gun from strong and weak sides).

Surefire uses force-on-force training extensively. We used Surefire-supplied paintball guns. They were frankly not all that reliable, but Simmunitions probably would have been impractical with officers from different agencies carrying different guns (some of whom might not have had Sims barrels available).

Much of the force-on-force was done with other trainees, but occasionally the instructors had a run at us. It is absolutely horrifying to hear the call "We're hot!" and see those evil, green flightsuit-clad Ninjas moving down the field toward you. You pretty much know your toast. My proudest moment was when I somehow smoked two instructors, both at some distance.

That brings up another point. Surefire emphasizes point shooting. I've stressed flash-sight picture in the past, but I never considered using the sights when I greased the two instructors. I'm not sure it was muscle memory of my shooting platform as I was using this goofy AR-15 style paintball gun. I qualify with the AR, but not that often. If you are a true believer in sight alignment or even the flash sight picture, Surefire will offer a different perspective.

The instructor course included about ninety minutes of defensive tactics every day. Eastern martial arts-based, many of the techniques were unnatural to street cops. Once you forgot past training and instinct, the techniques were effective. Many were fairly simple. The course won't turn you into a DT instructor, but it will give you an interest in continuing your studies.

The trainees were a good bunch. I "knew" several of them from NTOA, SpecialOperations.com, tacticalforums.com, and other websites.

Graduates of the instructor course are provided the instructional resources to put on a school. If travel to a Surefire Institute school is impossible, you might consider finding a local instructor to put on a class. There is, of course, a fee if the instructor purchases the Surefire student handbooks for the class.

You might check out the www.surefire.com (http://www.surefire.com) for more information. In addition to their section on the Surefire Institute, the discussion boards may prove of value.

Be safe. Power with light! (Surefire-trained instructors just love saying that.)

[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: John from Maryland ]