law enforcement or military
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they do not need to attend ANY training .... They ....already know everything!
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The worst of the bunch. Usually VERY poor shooters (notice the use of the word shooter, not gun owner), and worse yet, their safety habits tend to be in the crapper. And unfortunately, MOST prior/current military and law enforcement have this attitude towards ongoing education. I say that based on no real scientific evidence, just a general impression of people I used to and still currently work with or know.
Last summer I taught several days of pistol shooting to various brass, including a General who actually gave me a plaque based on the quality of instruction. Over the course of three days, I taught about 200 people in rotation (about 2.5 hours/20 students for each iteration). Almost all of the students were terrible shots, and about half were terrible students. I was routinely accused of being a "gamer" and "competitive shooter" (must be my habitual search and accessing that gives it away... some of you will get why that is funny).
At the end of each iteration, the group would go up and shoot the qual table. Giant pop-up targets, 40 rounds, 30 targets, must hit at least 16 to pass. Retarded easy. Except for two of the 10ish groups, I always went up and qualed in the first heat. Mostly because I was bored and the ammo was free. My LOWEST score out of 8 or so attempts was 29/30 with 9 rounds left over (I missed twice. Doesn't matter how many rounds you have left over, but I kept track for myself).... because I shot the whole thing strong hand only and I still very much suck at that. I am not saying I am a great shot, because I only consider myself "decent" at best, I am saying it makes the NE CHP qual look challenging.
The students, like the General, who came in with an open mind and good attitude, ALWAYS qualified on their first attempts, and, on average, scored about 8 points higher than everyone else (non-scientific). Many told me they got the highest score on a pistol qual that they had ever got. Mind you, I taught completely on the range, and absolutely nothing from doctrine (because military pistol doctrine is about as useful as canned spit).
The _other_ students often had to make another (or several more) attempts. They routinely blamed the ammo, the gun, the targets, the hit sensors on the targets, the guys running the range, and, of course, even me.
And that, is why I completely understand this sentiment:
I just started laughing. I couldn't help it. When I thanked him for not being interested in taking one of my classes, he looked confused.
THAT. Is why I have no interest in trying to convince people to get more training. I will, on occasion, try to SHOW them why, but, based on the completely unscientific statistics below, that has a very low success rate. I have long since had my fill of teaching people who don't really want to be there. This is also why I don't teach CCW.
The other point I am attempting to illustrate is that military and law enforcement firearms training is designed to make officers or servicemembers "good enough." And, quite frankly, most of the time, what departments or DoD consider "good enough" is downright pitiful. The training is half-assed check-the-block bullcrap. I have literally laughed out loud at the phrases uttered by prior service (especially POGs and part-timers) about how proficient they are.
Now, to be fair to the _other_ students, I gave the option of remedial training, and even had an assistant instructor set aside who could teach it. Of the _other_ students, maybe 5% actually came back for the remedial training, and, usually, with a much better attitude. The other 95% scraped by and managed to score the minimum after several attempts.
