When someone like me – yes, I make my living in this industry as a professional defensive handgun trainer – says that gun owners really need quality, professional training repeated on a regular basis, too many people take that recommendation as … well, self-serving. Of course she’s going to say that, these people think. That’s where the money is.
Never mind that I made that same recommendation for years before I made the switch to full time teacher, or that in fact I volunteered significant amounts of my rare personal time to give that training away whenever I could. Never mind that I scrimped and saved and scrounged to get that kind of training for myself despite a deeply limited budget, so valuable did I find it on a personal level.
These cynics would see none of that, and would stick with the mistaken belief that the only possible reason I or anyone else might tell gunowners that they should get some good training is because we’re all greedy scoundrels.
The one that gives me the grit-your-teeth-and-smile reaction is:
“You’re an instructor. What gun should I buy for my wife/daughter/girlfriend?”
“Well, I would recommend instead of buying her a gun, buy her a gun class. After she learns the basics, let her select her own gun.”
“Well, sure. You instructors just want to sell a class.”
1. He thinks I know enough to give advice (free) because of my reputation as an instructor.
2. The advice I gave him is based on my experience: I get half-a-dozen students a year trying to learn to shoot the wrong gun* because it’s the one their husband/father/boyfriend picked out for them.
* Doesn’t fit their hand, too powerful, not as powerful as they want, too light so it kicks hard, etc.
Larry ~
Spot on.
Talked to a woman the other day who’d picked out her own gun based on how it felt in her hand in the gun store. Good plan as far as it goes…
Then she took a class and learned how to hold the gun, and suddenly the gun that “fit perfectly” didn’t fit her hand well at all. (And that’s quite apart from recoil issues and suddenly understanding why being able to reach the controls really mattered…)
Lots of ways to make expensive mistakes without some basic instruction under your belt.