At TDA Our School Guardian program has been one of our favorite contributions to the public.  We have built and grown our program in the past 10 years of Texas schools allowing certain volunteers to carry their handguns on campus with additional training.  We have worked with many institutions in Texas, and are glad to add more to the list.  One of the things that sets us apart from other training companies is our class structures.

 

We at TDA believe strongly in these programs, and provide the focus on firearms use, manipulations, and safety for these programs.  Our extensive list of client schools help share policies, procedures, and experiences amongst the community of programs.  After the program volunteers have completed at least 2 handgun courses, we begin with small (growing to larger) scenario repetitions inside the facility.  Decisions and movements are backed up on the live fire range the next day.  This ensures that teams do not begin to build tactics around the limitations of force on force training equipment, or begin taking shots that they are incapable of with live ammunition.

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It appears to be the industry norm to begin guardian programs with an "Active Shooter" training event such as Force on Force (Simmunitions/ Airsoft) or scenario based training.  The problem with this structure is that if the volunteer group has not had any prior professional instruction on the PROPER use of firearms, then an  "Active Shooter" or scenario training event is typically COUNTERPRODUCTIVE.  The results of a poorly timed scenario training event are everything from attempting to artificially increase the speed of the shooter's decision making skills, to reinforcing poor shooting habits, to to the utilization of extremely poor equipment and procedures.  All of this will DECREASE your volunteer group's performance and set them on the path for failure IN AN EXTREMELY CROWDED SETTING!  (Plus, it wastes money!)

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We have also seen very poorly conducted scenario training in the industry.  Improperly structured classes without proper use of role players and volunteers is incredibly dangerous for a real world situation.  Likewise, a lack of critical debriefs on completion of the individual events does little to assist in the development of the group. 

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To be clear:  We are not against Force on Force/ Scenario training!  We simply reserve that training tool to groups that have had at least 2 2-day courses specific to the direct use of handguns.  We refuse to set our clients up for failure simply to make money.  We have to put our name on the certificates at the end of the day.

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