My CCW Class: 12 hours of unmitigated horror.

The BBQ Pit
1

So my wife and I would like to get our CCW permits, and yesterday we took the requisite 12-hour training course giving by a certified LEO firearms instructor. He has been an LEO for 20 years, and is an instructor at numerous law enforcement academies.

Am I still alive? Someone pinch me. :eek:

When we walked up to the building where the classroom seesion was held, there was a sign outside that said, “No ammunition allowed in the classroom.” At the beginning of class the instructor asked, “Is everyone’s gun unloaded?” Everyone nodded yes. And then he asked, “Does anyone have any loaded magazines?” Two students said “yes.” :rolleyes: The instructor’s wife gathered up these magazines and took them to the back of the classroom.

The instructor never personally checked the condition of weapons while in the classroom. He might have asked each person to check their neighbor’s weapon to see if it was loaded. To be honest, I was too distracted by all the unsafe gun handling to notice what the instructor was saying.

Anyway, the instructor was waiving his gun throughout the duration of the 10-hour classroom portion, and regularly pointed it at the class. Of course, the gun was unloaded. But should that make any difference? I still consider it bad form, and setting a bad example. (I thought everyone knew you should treat an unloaded firearm the same as a loaded one.)

I rarely paid attention to what the instructor was saying, as I was completely distracted by the incredibly unsafe stuff that was going on.

During the classroom portion the instructor picked up his handgun about 50 times to show us something. He never checked the chamber before picking it up. Ever.

Even worse were the students. Many were screwing around and dry-firing while facing forward. Which means they were pointing a gun directly at the person in front of them and pulling the trigger. Thank GOD my wife and I were in the very last row, or I would have had a heart attack. And throughout the class, students would routinely pick up their handguns and rack the slide while pointing it directly at someone. My jaw hit the floor about a thousand times. And like the instructor, none of the students (except my wife and I) checked the chamber before picking up their handguns.

Muzzles? Pointed everywhere. Fingers on triggers? Yep, every time a student picked up a gun… :mad:

The worst thing is that it wasn’t just one or two students (plus the instructor) being unsafe: it was every last one of them! Here’s just one example: every time the stupid bitch sitting next to my wife would take out her gun and play with it, she would put he finger on the trigger and rack the slide while pointing it directly at my wife. :eek:

Again, I was in total shock at the incredibly unsafe firearms handling techniques. And when I looked around the room, none of the other students seemed fazed. I was apparently the only one who noticed it.

It’s frick’n amazing there were no NDs.

If you ever take a CCW course, I highly recommend the following:

  1. Pick a class with the LEAST amount of students. (There were about 100 in our class. That’s WAY too many.) Yea, you’ll probably have to pay more money. But at least you won’t die of a heart attack.

  2. Pick an instructor that PRACTICES and ENFORCES safe gun handling.

  3. Pick a seat in the LAST row. That way, no one behind you will be pointing a muzzle in your direction.

It was 12 hours of complete horror. I am STILL in shock. :eek:

2

That is absolutely horrible.

And this guy is supposed to be teaching people, many of whom may have never had safety instruction on firearms, how to handle them safely?

If I were you, I’d write a letter detailing the unsafe practices in the class to the people who oversee this instruction. It may save a life.

3

Isn’t there some saying about how many people are killed each year with unloaded guns? And another one about how you never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to make a hole in?

This is kinda worrying.

4

The point of the class isn’t to actually instruct anybody. The point of the class is to provide one more inconvenient legal hoop for you to jump through. Therefore, it was a complete success.

5

:eek: My father, who was a mild-mannered gun dealer by day, would absolutly pounce on anyone that did that shit in front of him. I get that drilled into me so hard that I probably would have had to leave because I would have been so furious.

6

Sheee-it!! I’d have had a stroke!

My dad kept a gun in our house and the one thing he always drummed into our heads was this: “There’s no such thing as an unloaded gun.” Every gun–even if we “knew” it was empty–was to be handled as if it were loaded.

My brother had to learn the hard way–thankfully, with only a BB gun. He pumped and fired, pumped and fired, till he’d fired several “air” shots. Then he put the pumped it up, put the muzzle to the palm of his hand, and fired. BANG!! Dad had to cut the skin of his palm to let the rapidly swelling bruise deflate (the BB somehow didn’t break the skin, and blood was swelling so badly under the skin that Dad had to nick it to ease some of the terribly painful pressure).

Even if we’d not been listening before that little incident, I assure you that afterward, we had the message, loud and clear!

7

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Total opposite of my class.

A guy almost got kicked out of class for placing his finger inside the trigger guard (before we were instructed to fire) while we were on the range and his gun was pointed in a safe direction.

The instructor inspected every weapon personally at the start and had each student answer some questions or demonstrate something on the weapon to make sure they had some clue as to what they were holding. At this point one student was removed because she was not familiar with removing a jam and told to seek basic firearms training then return.

My instructor was a hard core Special Forces guy that is very serious about guns. At other classes there may be professional teachers that see the class as just another weekend gig to pick up a few bucks. I’ve had an unrelated 6 hour continuing education class offered by somebody that had absolutely no experience in the subject :eek: He told us at the beginning not to ask any questions related to the material because he would not be able to answer them. Sounds like your instructor was one of these types.

8

Joining the chorus of :eek:

My hubby, who grew up with a dad who was a professional hunter and so was using guns at a very young age, and then spent years in the military, chewed my ass out once for holding my great-grandfather’s antique shotgun in a way that it was barely vaguely pointing at people, even though it’s not even been in fireable condition for probably at least 75 years.

If I were you, I’d definitely report the unsafe practices to the licensing body, whatever it may be!

9

And still apalling to those of us who take firearms safety seriously. These people are begging for a serious accident, which the anti-gun lobby will then use as a point in their favor when arguing that ordinary citizens shouldn’t be allowed to carry firearms.

Honestly, the lack of general firearms safety displayed by some in law enforcement is disgusting and frightening. It really puts to rest the idea that someone can definitely be trusted with a firearm because they have a badge, eh?

10

I got teeth aching shivers just reading the OP. I think I would’ve had to walk out of the classroom. I bet a lot of those people would’ve said, “But it’s not loaded,” if anyone had called them out on it, and I second the recommendation to write a letter of complaint about the class. Gun safety rules should’ve been discussed before anything else.

One of my pet peeves in movies and TV shows is when supposed experts in gun use walk around with their finger wrapped around the trigger. My second pet peeve is whenever someone treats a gun as unloaded. You’ll never accidentally shoot someone if you treat every gun as loaded, cocked, and trigger half pulled.

One of my things is that whenever I’m holding on to a gun, I try to be 100% aware, 100% of the time that the gun is in hand. If I, for even a moment, forget that I was holding the weapon, even if I followed perfect gun safety rules, I berate myself for not paying attention.

11

Yet another :eek: offered for that story.

I had a completely different experience. Not only did our instructor check every weapon (class size of six, so no problems there) but he also had each of us check the open action of our neighbor’s weapon.

And he emphasized it throughout the class. At one point, demonstrating a 12 ga double-barreled shotgun, he palmed a 410 shell and slipped it down one barrel. He then went through the routine of unloading the 12 ga shells that were in each barrel and asked the student closest to him to verify that the weapon was empty. By this time, of course, it was a boring routine, and the student barely glanced down the barrel before assuring him that it was… at which point he let loose with some very strong (but professional) commentary about being SURE, EVERY TIME… and showed the class how one barrel was blocked with the wrong shell, and how bad that would be if fired.

(Naturally, all these were dummy shells).

Abysmal experience related by the OP. Letters of complaint should follow.

12

GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Stories like this just make me want to jump out of my skin.

I agree. This guy shouldn’t be teaching anyone when he can’t practice safety himself. Completely unacceptable.

13

I had a much different experience with my CC class. The instructors were very safety aware and there were several of them for our class of about twenty. Nobody even brought a gun to class that I was aware of. Why would you, if you don’t already have the permit?

Write a letter to somebody about this situation.

14

We were at a range several weeks ago, and I am VERY inexperienced around guns. But I remember from my gun owning friends the rule about never point a weapon at anyone, even if you think/know it is unloaded. So we go into the range and the guy is telling us the rules and he turns around and points an unloaded .45 at my stomach from a foot away. I flinched, big time, and part of it was my check of a reflex to disarm anyone who might point a gun at me in the most painful way possible. The gunrange dude laughed it off (“Look, new guy flinched”), but he never knew that he came awfully close to having the left side of his jaw caved in. Other than that, they were pretty good about stuff, though, so I’m hoping it was a momentary lapse.

That class sounds pretty scary, though.

15

What are all those acronyms? Not all of us know what you’re talking about.

I hate guns, and even I know that you never point a gun at anyone…always, ALWAYS check to see if it’s loaded…and treat all guns as if they ARE loaded.

I hope you turned this guy in to someone. He shouldn’t be teaching anything.

16

I’m assuming a CCW permit means a Carrying a Concealed Weapon permit, or something of that flavor given the context of the OP. LEO is probably Low Earth Orbit, but it might be Law Enforcement Officer, also given the context. GOD probably stands for YHWH.

Any others?

17

There are only two acronyms in the OP. The forst is CCW: Concealed Carry Weapon [permit]. LEO means the teacher was a law enforcement safety instructer.

My father was a hunter-safety instructor. I was helping him teach class from the age of 9! At no point in years of helping did I feel the least bit endangered. He drilled every student in the proper safety procedure. In fact, he refused to allow any student to say the word “weapon” in class. It was a “firearm,” not a weapon. Never a weapon. Because we were here to learn how to be hunters, not how to defend ourselves or how to take down criminals.

In all his years, he only had to fail two students, and as far as I know no student ever had an gun-related accident. Heck, I was passing the final tests while I was still in my single-digits!

18

Given the context, it’s definitely the latter.

Not to often in posts about firearms do we refer to Low Earth Orbits.

19

And to think I majored in both humorology and humoristics at the University of Heidelberg. I should demand my tuition money back.

20

Well, if you were so shocked, horrified and fearful of your life, why didn’t you SAY anything? Why didn’t your wife yell at and chastise the idiot pointing the gun at her w/ their finger on the trigger? Just sitting there shocked and horrified and but not doing anything about it isn’t much better.