May 30 2009 - Concealed Carry Class

Well, we made it to our 12 hour class in order to get our carry permit. This was an adventure. I’m going to give some of the more “colorful” highlights but want to make something perfectly clear about the class. The instructors and the curriculum of this class were FIRST RATE. I would recommend them to anyone. However, that does not mean that the class was uneventful…especially with the mix of people attending.

Harley-Dude: BIG guy, blond hair, tattoos and all the things you would expect. However, the sunsets he used to ride into were probably a long time ago, and the hip and knee have forced him to a cane and bent stature. It’s the narcolepsy that was of interest, though. His head just kept creeping toward the table, cane or floor (sometimes drooling was involved) until he woke up and casually nodded his head like he was thinking. This was CONSTANT throughout the lessons and we felt sorry for him. He did pass the course, though.

Outside at the range 1: OK, the range master was a good guy but he really didn’t spell out what was going to happen and what words would be used. So when he exclaimed, “OK, Let’s make some noise!”, someone loaded up and started to fire. He comes running over yelling “Put the Gun Down!”, so the guy tossed it on the ground a few feet away. That didn’t help things with the instructor. However, everyone relaxed and things continued as normal. Some of the folks there had brand new guns that had never held ammo and they had never fired a gun. The instructors walked them all through it. The only issue I had was when one of Sharon’s shells went down the back of my shirt. Guess I needed to button up a little higher.

Outside at the range 2: BLOOD. Sharon came back from her second round of shooting and I noticed a drop of blood to the left of her lip. I thought she had scraped herself with her ring or something, but when I cleaned it off… no wound. Then we saw the blood on the inside of the ring finger on the left hand. Cleaned that off… no wound. So there was blood on the adjacent finger…no wound. Where did she get fresh blood on her without anyone being closer than 4 feet away? There were several guys who sliced their thumbs on the slides because they didn’t use the right grip for a semi-auto. I guess the blood could have flown at 90 degrees for about 15 feet??!!!

Sharon says she really didn’t get all that much from the class. A lot of time was spent talking about the paperwork for getting your license and in going over things that were in the book (which we were then tested on, closed book). While the instructors had some good anecdotal stories, Sharon wanted more black and white answers—of course, she knows sometimes there aren’t any, she just was hoping they would have some. The one thing she did really take away from the class was the catch phrase, “shoot to stop the threat.” In struggling a bit to accept the fact that shooting could very likely kill someone, this helps her to think about the whole need/reason to shoot in a different way. Another good thing they talked about was that target shooting doesn’t mean anything in a real-life situation, where you’re likely going to be within 7’ of someone and not using any sites to take aim. Her next goal is an introductory “defensive moves & shooting” kind of class.

All in all, a good day. The weather was great and the rain held off until we were running to the cars to leave. Now to pay the $110 to the county and another $234 to Florida to get our permits. Yuck!