NOT SO GOOD: Chinese police firearm training: Five rounds.

The Washington Post continues with the anti-gun bias in their latest story following up on China’s decision to arm local police.

For a long time, Chinese police were similar to those in Great Britain, where local cops generally were unarmed and only the specialized units had guns.

Given the upswing of terrorist attacks, the Chinese government has re-evaluated those policies and has begun issuing firearms to good guys to thwart attacks and save innocent lives.

Now comes the Washington Post to tell us how rank-and-file cops have an aversion to their new, potentially life-saving tools.

Cops are saying, privately, that they are as scared of the guns.

It’s not surprising.  Some haven’t fired a single round with a firearm since the five rounds they discharged in their police academy training.   Others – perhaps the more elite coppers – fire ten rounds a year!

Ten whole rounds.

Is it any wonder these cops, recruited from a society where private gun ownership is almost non-existent – are a little intimidated by this new tool?  And then there’s the fallout if they fire their guns and shoot someone.  And more.

Ironically, this weekend I was helping to train thirty-two people for an Illinois Concealed Carry class.   Each student, over about 18 hours of classroom and range training, fired about 250 rounds in a host of exercises to give them the knowledge, skills and attitude necessary to use deadly force as a card-carrying good guy in public or to defend themselves in their homes. That’s apparently fifty times what the Chinese government requires of their police cadets.

I can’t imagine sending police officers out with guns with only five- or ten-rounds of practical shooting experience.  Can you?  What could possibly go wrong, right?

Here’s the article if you want to read it.  While it makes guns sound as if they are some mysterious talisman, it does provide some insight into Chinese society.

Newly armed police in China say they fear their guns as much as public

BEIJING (Washington Post)  — In response to terrorism threats, China recently lifted a decade-long ban on police guns and began issuing firearms to officers for the first time across the country.

We plumbed the depth of problems in the wake of these guns in our story today: the sudden spate of suspicious police shootings and woeful lack of training and accountability.

But we also privately consulted officers and gun instructors across the country — in particularly revealing and rare interviews because police in China almost never talk to foreign media. On the condition of anonymity, half a dozen current and retired officers told us how it feels to carry a gun for the first time, worries they now wrestle with and mounting pressures both on the street and in their departments. Here’s what they told us:

Many expressed a surprising aversion to their new firearms.

“I’ve never liked guns,” said one nine-year veteran. Until this year, guns were forbidden to most police — except for SWAT units and teams on special missions. “Even in past special operations, when we were ordered to have guns, I let co-workers take them instead. You have to worry about it misfiring, about it getting stolen or someone dying improperly.”