On Monday morning, I heard the sound of distant gunfire. The local range is precisely one mile from my front door. The sounds I heard were in a very specific cadence. A group of shooters fired three shots. After a pause, the group fired three more shots. There was another pause followed by three more shots. There was more shooting after those initial nine rounds, but hearing the first nine told me what was going on.

I smiled because I could tell by this cadence that some local police agency (likely the county sheriff’s department) was on the range for its semi-annual qualification. I have fired enough of these qualification courses over the years to know the sequence. There was a lull in the shooting, and then a single shooter fired three shots followed by two more sets of three. It was clear one person from the group had not successfully completed the qualification on the first attempt and had to shoot again — alone — in front of all the other officers.

Because my mind wanders all over the place, I got to thinking about the misguided belief that some anti-gunners have that only police officers should carry guns. This entire concept is flawed, and we will not go into it here, but there is something I want to talk about when it comes to police training: deadly force decision-making.

At the police academy, more time was spent and more stress was placed on deadly force decision-making than on actual trigger time. Yes, the shooting skills are very important. You must be able to hit what you are shooting at. But I agree with the Training and Standards Board that knowing when to shoot is every bit as important as knowing how to shoot. And let’s face it: Putting three rounds center mass at a range of 9 feet in four seconds is not a difficult standard to meet. While that may be just one of the tests on the qualification course, I will not say the 44-round course is all that challenging.

What is challenging in this day and age is knowing when you can put those rounds downrange at an actual bad guy. You may not even have four seconds to respond to aggression. You may be actively engaged in a hands-on fight before you need to escalate to your firearm. Have you considered other intervention options? Could you use OC spray? Would a TASER or baton be the right tool? Should you simply disengage in an effort to gain a tactical advantage?

Both police officers and private citizens must make the right decisions before they can take the correct actions. Unfortunately, criminals do not give anyone a lot of time to make those decisions. So, you need to be thinking about what you might do before you are forced to do it. This is not paranoia; this is preparation. Your body cannot go where your mind has not been. You will not rise to the occasion; you will default to your lowest level of training.

It is imperative that you know the laws regarding the use of deadly force in your jurisdiction. You should also play out some “What if?” scenarios regularly. On top of all that, you should be able to draw your gun and put three rounds on a target in four seconds from 3 yards away.

Are you ready for all that?