Many of the civilian hobbyists were much better shots than he expected. In fact, they were more than good—some of them gave the special ops warrior a run for his money.

“There were guys in their eighties—barely held together at the seams—who were out-shooting me,” he recalls.
It was a humbling experience—and an awakening for Satterlee.

via Top U.S. Army Marksman Explains Why Gun Nuts Shoot Better — War Is Boring — Medium.

Master Sgt. Scott Satterlee is  a member of the U.S. Army 1st Special Forces Group, a nationally ranked competitive precision rifle shooter and one of the military’s best marksmen. So we have here somebody who has walked the walk, can shoot and understand that training in the Military does not come close to what civilians do every weekend on their own.

He has a great line” “Standard operating procedure becomes dogma.” Unfortunately this is true with any big conglomerate of people as they get so mentally entrenched that the idea of change is seen as almost treason. The fact that the “upper management” in the Military and Law Enforcement will require a brutal shakedown before they accept that changes are needed even though when most of their top shooters come from a civilian background of either competitive shooting or hunting. The smart ones without any formal shooting history, make it personal to go outside the system and get into training and competition because they understand it is not just going pew-pew at a piece of paper but acquiring life-saving skills that may come handy is some God-forsaken piece of sandy crap halfway around the world.

Hat Tip to Jon B.