Choose: simple: and try to separate the wheat from the chaff

Guns Magazine, Dec, 2008 by Clint Smith

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There are a lot of shooting schools available and there will be a lot more opening in the next couple of years. We get a rock solid three to five requests a month about how to open/start a shooting school. It has become a vogue trend to have or run a shooting school regardless of whether or not the owner(s) can teach or better yet even run a basic business.

This aforementioned business might--or should--require proper credentials of student identification, liability release waivers, basic liability insurance or the ability to (heaven forbid!) generate basic medical attention in case of the also trendy tendency to have potential acceptable casualties. About now some of these new potential gun school proprietors reading this will punch in the intellect-applied-mode button with the screech of "that insurance and paper stuff is all BS man I'm just gonna teach warriors to kill Hajji monsters and do some tactical strobe light reverse kneeling."

Being absolutely sure I've stepped on someone's toes now ... I might also point out another subtle nuance: Because you are/were a civilian, a cop or in the military or even a member of the NRA doesn't make you a weapons firearms instructor, teacher (or you pick the word) any more than my wife's piano in our living room makes me a concert pianist. All of these concepts are completely acceptable, or not, to some people, yet there are some other even more puzzling issues, at least to me, for our new gun school owners to consider, here are a few.

Under the category of adult learning (using the term loosely), I have seen people go to school and not learn anything because they were too busy "showing" the instructor what they already knew. I have seen people go to school and spend lots of money, go home for a year and practice nothing and come back to school again spending lots more money and be no better and often worse than they were the year before.

Some people learn by watching, some people learn by doing, some people learn by watching and doing ... and some people never learn. I have seen people go to school and take the course and literally be a threat to all humanity when they left the parking lot. Because someone went to a school means absolutely nothing. I get requests from people who went to another school and they want to go to my level 39 handgun class because (and I love this part), "I don't need no basics." Perfect. I don't have a level 39 handgun class, so we're even. This can even apply to me if a person gets training from me and doesn't practice or doesn't get it. In that case, they simply attended a school and blew a hole in time.

One more time ... A person's possession of a firearm does not equate to competency anymore than attendance in a school--or lots of schools--means they know how to shoot.

I'd be a modest millionaire if I had five bucks for every double tap I've seen that did not work in a tactical scenario. For examples, the target did not respond or fall or, even better yet, the speedy version double tap whereby one round hits the target and the target drops sending the now errant second round through the wall, perhaps, shall we say, into your kids adjoining bedroom?

I still think someone is going to ask about all those bullets flying around. Here is what some will think is shocking food for thought, and it throws most people: I advise and teach my students to shoot every stinking round they have in their weapons system and on their person in the faux tactical scenarios here at the school and even more importantly on the street in a real world fight ... All I ask of them in both cases is that they shoot 'em one round at a time until they solve the problem.

If you do not hit the target, it does not count, help or solve the problem and most often it will simply create another problem that did not exist only moments before.

Who cares what the technique is called? How about the concept of learning how to physically manipulate your equipment so you can simply save your life in the fight. My single biggest issue in training is conducting a program safely with the learning curve coming in second. With rifles like the AR platform as an example I strongly stress the student put the safety on for each firing exercise so they must take the safety off to shoot.

This of course leads people to believe I do it to make the student or the range safe. Actually, those are noble ideas but I do so because a great number of people forget to take the safety off to fire the rifle in range drills, so what do you think they might forget in a fight?

About now some bright light professional will come up with "leave the safety off."

OK, we'll try that one on for size with, how many gun fights have you been in, and how many times have you tripped and fallen, which have you done more of?. Leave the safety on and keep your finger off the trigger while you control the muzzle. Simple thought: How many people do you know you would trust with a loaded anything behind you in a fight?