On January 9th, 2016, I was joined by 9 students for a five hour course covering Handgun Fundamentals & Safety. This course is generally designed to be four hours, but for this course we added an additional hour in order to also cover some of the legal issues which surround the issue of firearms as well as the use of deadly force. The participants included all walks of life ranging from teachers and computer programmers to salesmen and horse trainers. It was a cool morning with temperatures in the high 40's and low 50's, but everyone dressed for the weather and we were able to have a wonderful day of training.

As we always do with this course, we began by covering the major parts of handguns and identifying the major components in ammunition. We find that it's important to explain the ways that the major components interact with each other so that we can have a more complete understanding of the operation of the firearm. We then moved into the 7 fundamentals of shooting where we spent the greatest time on the proper grip of a handgun.

After each participant demonstrated a solid understanding of the fundamentals using airsoft pistols, we moved on to the range for live fire exercises. Starting at the 7 yard line, we had the shooters with less experience start with a .22LR semi-automatic handgun to make sure that they knew they were capable of performing the fundamentals correctly before moving on to larger calibers. With everyone going through several rounds of warmup, we moved into two groups that would take turns on the firing line. This allowed us to utilize our time effectively as one group would be reloading while the other group was shooting. 

In the class we had a wide array of firearms ranging from small revolvers to a competition sized Glock 34. I brought several firearms so that the participants who don't already own a firearm could get some experience with different sizes and features that they might like to consider. The handguns present in the course included:

• Several Glocks:  17, 19, 26, 34, 43, 22
• Smith & Wesson:  M&P Compact 9, M&P Compact 22
• Kel-Tec (model unknown)
• Heckler & Koch P30 and P30SK

After spending a sufficient amount of time on the firing line, we went back to the classroom area to cover the last segment of the course. During this segment, which is usually presented in our Concealed Carry course, we covered the legal issues surrounding firearms and the use of force. We discussed the Reasonable Man Standard, the requirements that must be present in order to justify the use of deadly force, the changes brought about by the Safe Carry Protection Act of 2014 (HB-60), and more. With many of our students telling us that they have questions regarding the use of force regarding home defense, we decided to introduce this segment into the first course. The feedback that we received was very favorable for the class overall and particularly for this segment.

We greatly appreciate everyone spending their Saturday with us, and we look forward to having each of the participants in our later courses.

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