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The NRA Police Firearms Instructor Manual from 1968 is a valuable collectible item for enthusiasts of historical memorabilia related to police and firearms. Published by the National Rifle Association USA, this manual provides insight into the training and techniques used by police officers in handling firearms during that era. With a focus on police firearms instruction, this publication serves as a unique piece of history that showcases the evolution of policing techniques and firearm training in the late 1960s.
This manual covers both revolvers and shotguns. Modern training has neglected both of these platforms and this book reflects lost knowledge. It describes training methods still valuable today.
It wasn’t until after World War I that NRA was able to increase its efforts to provide firearm training to the police. In 1920, an NRA-commissioned survey revealed that, of American cities with more than 25,000 people, only 13 had a firearm training program. A “Special Police School” was set up at Camp Perry, Ohio, the home of the NRA National Matches at the time. An interactive course of fire simulating tactical situations that officers might encounter on the street was created and dubbed “Hogan’s Alley.“ That name is used today at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Va.
Not long after that, NRA invited police departments to send teams to compete in the pistol phase of the National Matches and attend the Special Police School. By 1929, there were 140 officers present, and that number would only rise. Police teams—in particular the Detroit Police Dept., the U.S. Border Patrol and the LAPD—became dominant forces at the NRA National Pistol Matches.
The year 1960 was a watershed year for NRA and the police, as the Association developed a program in which officers could be certified as NRA Police Firearms Instructors. It was the advent of the NRA Law Enforcement Activities Division that has served our nation’s “thin blue line” now for 60 years. Note that then, as now, NRA “trains the trainers,” and then sends them back to their departments to teach individual officers. And it wasn’t limited to just municipal officers, as the training was soon extended to private security officers as well.
Since the department’s founding in 1960, NRA has trained more than 59,000 NRA Law Enforcement instructors, and there are more than 13,000 active today.
