T.C. Fuller’s new book “No Safe Alternative” is subtitled “Improving How We Teach Cops to Kill.” That subtitle catches the eye for sure, so let’s start with the fact that the author fully understands that deadly force should be applied only with the purpose to stop, not to kill. But because they don’t call it “lethal force” for nothing, the person applying it may use it only against criminal aggressors who are threatening to kill or severely injure innocent people, including the defender who pulls the trigger. Therefore, the justified defender must be prepared to kill another human being if he or she must.
The press of a trigger that may end a human life is a cosmic decision that must take into account the defender’s belief system, and a spectrum of elements, each of which can be a life study in and of themselves: controlling fear, thinking ahead and preparing for the threat, the recognition of legal (both criminal and civil), and emotional and psychological aftermaths.
T.C. Fuller is well aware of all of this: it is the core of this book. I’ve known T.C. for around a quarter of a century. He fought for his country overseas and retired from a successful career with the FBI. Times came when he had to shoot other men to death in the line of duty. As a soldier, he was one of America’s protectors, and as a career law enforcement officer he was literally one of “society’s gunfighters.” He instructed others in the art and science of dealing with the apex predator of the planet Earth, homicidal feral man. He knows whereof he speaks.
And when he speaks of what needs to be taught more deeply than it is, to these protectors — including those law-abiding citizens protecting themselves and their loved ones — he speaks for many of us, and with authority. The title “No Safe Alternative” draws from the fact that sometimes, only lethal force can stop evil people from destroying the lives of innocent victims.
Where the Book is Coming From
On his own time, while working with the Bureau, T.C. earned a doctorate in education. Over the years he became appalled at training systems which put more emphasis on how to fire a gun than when to do so, and lost sight of the fact that the operative part of the word “gunfight” was “fight,” not “gun.”
He writes, “The current firearms instruction system throughout law enforcement appears more concerned with ensuring a baseline of weapons handling competence and basic marksmanship skills than with keeping police officers alive in a gunfight.”
He bemoans the fact that most training does not prepare the practitioner for the aftermath. T.C. writes that after he had to kill in the line of duty, “My sleep patterns now are much different. Immediately after my most recent return, I had some disturbing dreams which interrupted my sleep almost nightly. While I did not wake screaming or thrashing, I would often start awake with elevated breathing and some confusion as to where I was. It would then often take several hours for me to fall back to sleep afterward. These dreams have tapered off with time and are now only occasional visitors, though they remain vivid when they happen. I suppose they will be lifelong companions.”
Fuller’s doctorate in education qualifies him to say, “The idea that we as leaders in the training realm should be aware of and informed by (modern) developmental research and knowledge is foreign. It is one that we need to do a better job of embracing.”
Fuller himself embraces reality-based training: force-on-force along with virtual training, firing laser guns at criminals on the screen attacking in real-time. He understands that it’s not as time and cost-efficient as a lecture to a large class or many students live-firing on a long square range upon commands from a range tower, but also understands that these things are authentically replicated experience, and thus imperative to those who go in harm’s way to protect others.
A member of the nation’s and perhaps the world’s premier law enforcement agency, T.C. writes “My law enforcement deadly force training centered largely on the use of the handgun and the various long guns assigned to me. I was trained on the policy requirements as they pertained to deadly force implementation. I had some training in the laws on the subject. I never had a class from my employer on the ethics surrounding deadly force implementation, nor on the psychology of deadly force. I never had formal instruction on what to expect in terms of an agency reaction should I be compelled to use deadly force, though I had many informal conversations on the subject with my peers.”
That particular commentary struck a chord with this reviewer, who has spent decades incorporating those things into his own teaching. No wonder “No Safe Alternative” rings a positive bell with me.
T.C. concludes, “What we need to consider is the creation of a dedicated block of deadly force instruction within an officer’s Basic Academy curriculum, supported by ongoing, periodic deadly force in-service training. This would be a block of instruction, developed on the basis of solid research and applied field experience. It would be integrated training surrounding all aspects of the single greatest responsibility society lays upon law enforcement officers: the administration of deadly force. Nothing like this currently exists in any law enforcement training academy that I am aware of.”
What’s Old Is New
Many of the chapters in “No Safe Alternative” are titled in Latin. That’s not a guy with a doctorate showing off pretentiously, but instead, a reminder that the ethics of deadly force are so well-established in the epoch of the human experience that they go back to the time of the ancient Romans and beyond: a recognition of the eternal principle that sometimes ugly things must be done to protect the innocent from uglier evil…and a recognition also that the Protectors must understand these things beforehand to be able to employ such force judiciously and effectively when the unwelcome time comes that forces them to do so.
My friend Tom Givens, one of the great instructors of our time in this discipline, has called T.C. Fuller’s book “No Safe Alternative” a must-read. I concur. It’s available on Amazon, and while you’re at it, you might as well get T.C.’s biography of his time in the Bureau, “Painting Over Rust.”
