Big Boy Rules – any time I hear an idiotic phrase like this it means to me one thing. “We are going to violate inviolable safety principles because we believe we are impervious to the consequences of not following them.”
Today, LCpl Spencer if the British Army is dead. This is not an isolated occurrence. I have heard or seen many, many situations where during training upper tier organizations do very hazardous things because they believe the rules don’t apply to them.
For example, and although not fatal, one upper level police organization REFUSED to use full face protection during opposed force training with marking cartridges citing their years of experience of firing over 30,000 such rounds a year at each other with the Big Boy Rule of “no head shots, okay?” A penetrating face wound with a projectile lodge by the recipient’s mandibular angle was t result.
Unfortunately for future participants in their programs, the complainant did not pursue criminal charges against the trainers for Reckless Endangerment, a criminal action with substantial penalties. There was a minimum settlement and I can only imagine this organization continues to flaunt is flagrance of Best Practices, mostly because they are clueless as to what they are.
We do what we do here at the RBTA to try to install safe, Best Practices for all manners of training to protect the participants from physical and emotional harm while at the same time optimizing their future performance. Sadly, too many people believe they are already doing things correctly, mostly because of the hubris of past luck that fuels their thinking that Big Boy Rules are fine. They are not fine. They are hazardous at best, RECKLESS even when no physical harm occurs, and deadly when their true nature is revealed.
Big Boy Rules are nothing more than an excuse to be deliberately indifferent to the safety needs of your training participants. And I will, and have, personally testify to that in court. LCpl Spencer and his family deserved better than this. But I can all but guarantee his death will do NOTHIng to move the needle on the meter toward the direction of enduring change.
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