If you watch the news often, in any country, you’re probably used to seeing heads of state doing silly things on camera. Planting trees, handing off food to the children, dancing with people, flying combat jets…

Rarely those publicity stunts look authentic and not cringe-worthy. But, a few days ago, I came across a video that looks like a rare exception.

In this video, King Abdalla II of Jordan is participating in a vehicle tactics demonstration with his son, Hussein, who is also a crown prince and the heir to the Jordanian throne.

I am sure this video will cause mixed reactions, but, no matter what you think, doing vehicle tactics together is an awesome way to spend a father-son weekend.

Moreover, in Arabic society leadership by example is more necessary than anywhere else. In the video, we see shooters demonstrating good muzzle discipline, decent weapon manipulation skills and most importantly, they clearly like to train and enjoy it.

I can easily imagine an instructor in Jordanian military unit showing this video to the students and asking “If our King, who has other things to do in life, can shoot like that, why can’t you?”.

Obviously, if we want to nitpick, not everything is perfect in this video. The King occasionally has a little bit of chicken wing (which is often happens with people of his generation, back in the day chicken wing was THE WAY to shoot), certain tactics look very questionable. But overall, both shooters demonstrate solid shooting technique and clearly have plenty of experience.

Prince Hussein training at KASOTC shooting range.

The choice of weapons is also interesting. The King is using SIG SAUER MCX SBR with KeyMod handguard and 60 round Surefire magazine. His sidearm looks like a custom 1911 with a compensator and rail in a Kydex holster.

According to the thedrive.com article it not not just any custom 1911, but JTK-1911, custom 1911 pistol built by Jordanian Armament and Weapon Systems (JAWS for short).

The optic on a carbine is even more interesting – it is an Israeli MEPRO MOR (Multi Purpose Reflex Sight with Laser Pointers) red dot sight with integrated red and IR lasers.

One nice detail that I noticed – on the left hand the King has a glove with full fingers, on the right hand there is a different glove with cut fingers. Makes sense, because with your left hand you hold the handguard that gets hot really fast during this type of training, and with your right-hand index finger you pull the trigger. I did some testing a few years ago, and gloves with fingers generally do slow down you split times a bit.

Hussein has a less sophisticated loadout – M4 carbine with Aimpoint CompM4 red dot and Glock 19.

In fact, that is not the first time the King demonstrates his affection towards MCX. Last year, he was using the same rifle with the same optic at a large Jordanian military exercise

There is no official information about any procurement of SIG MCX by Jordanian forces, the rifle might simply be a part of King’s personal weapon collection that he has in his palace, according to comedian Russel Peters:

In conclusion, I think that the King of Jordan and his son are a pretty good illustration of leading by example and parenting done right.