Stress. Under stress the fight-or-flight response kicks in and a lot of fine motor skills and training goes out the window. An instructor of mine said that whe

Stress. Under stress the fight-or-flight response kicks in and a lot of fine motor skills and training goes out the window. An instructor of mine said that when the adrenaline hits, at best you have half of your trained skill, lose a lot of fine motor control, and won’t be able to think coherently for thirty to sixty seconds. You’ll do what was trained to the point of being automatic or is simple. Police officers typically get somewhere around one hundred hours of firearms training during academy and anywhere from eight to fifty hours of annual retraining, practice, and/or recertification. This is a lot less than needed to become or remain proficient. Had someone asked any of the officers immediately afterward how many times they pulled the trigger they probably would have answered two or three times or that they don’t know.