Does cal .22 Improve Marksmanship for Police Students in Sweden?

Abstract

Firearm training could focus on more practical shooting and tactical training if students pass the examination at an earlier stage during their basic training. The aim of this study is to investigate whether minimizing the recoil, and therefore the startle reaction, and/or psychological factors could increase the shooting scores. This study employs a quasi-experimental design involving two groups of police students: 28 in the control group and 27 in the intervention group. The intervention group received an adjusted version of the Sig Sauer handgun that was changed to fire .22 long rifle caliber ammunition. Although the study group had the best results (86%) over the past fifteen semesters, there was no difference in the shooting performance between the control and the intervention groups, i.e., minimizing recoil in the beginning of the training did not increase the shooting scores. The results of this study indicate that female students with high cognitive anxiety have lower shooting scores than male students with less cognitive anxiety. These findings are discussed with special regard to equalizing any gender differences in firearm training.

Keywords

• Cognitive anxiety
• firearm examination
• gender
• police training
• startle reaction