So you have arrived at the point in life that you realize the world is not a safe place and you have decided to purchase a handgun and carry it for personal protection or keep one in your home for the same reason. Now you tell yourself, I bought a gun so what do I do now? Right off the cuff I will go ahead and say it. You need to take a class.
1. Go sign up for a handgun class! If you are going to carry a deadly weapon then please do not kid yourself. Buying a gun, loading it, dropping it into your drawer or console does not make you a safe, responsible gun owner let alone qualify you to carry it on your person. It actually makes you a danger to everyone around you. There is much to learn about safe gun handling and carrying a gun for personal defense and you will NEVER learn it from the guy next door. A good firearms instructor will teach you what you didn’t know you didn’t know and you will find this out quickly in a good class.
A good instructor will introduce you to and teach you the things you need to know about carrying a handgun on your person or keeping a firearm in your home for personal defense. The sheriff of my county actually sent his immediate family to our classes to be introduced to carrying a concealed handgun. I asked him why he did so since his department is the largest in our state and he operates the finest training center in the Southeast. He said, “I have known you for over 40 years, and while my department will teach them a lot about guns I know you will teach them how to leave Walmart at 10 PM and avoid getting robbed or kidnapped”. And at EHP Training that is what we do. There is a LOT more to owning and carrying a gun than simply learning how to load it and shoot it. Carrying a firearm is a lifestyle.
2. Safety, safety, and more safety. A good instructor will constantly bring up safety. He will constantly remind you that guns kill people and sometimes they kill innocent people because they were handled negligently. If this scares you it should. A good class will help you to get over your fears and teach you all the safety things you need to learn. The number one priority in carrying a firearm in public should always be safety. There is so much that you can’t know without taking a class.
You get into a confrontation and someone with a knife is coming at you. Behind this perp are two kids. If you miss the perp when firing a shot what if you hit one of the children? What if you hit the perp but your rounds pass through him and hit a bystander? How do I lessen the chances of this happening?
3. Learn or at least get as familiar as you can with your state’s gun laws. There is so much that people think they know about their state’s gun law that they don’t know. I see it every day. Almost every class I teach I have someone say things like, “Wow, I didn’t know that. I was told…” Or, “I have a friend whose brother is a policeman and he said…” One should never ask a police officer about gun law (that is a subject for another time). I have had people in my state (Alabama) that still think they can carry a handgun in their vehicle as long as it isn’t concealed. There is a nice pdf document with the entire Alabama Firearms and Weapons Law available for download here.
4. Learn your firearm. Learn it well. When you started driving there were so many things you had to learn to do that you wondered if you could master it. Depending on automatic or manual transmission you had to learn to do a combination of things and as time progressed you had to learn more. Today you have to fasten your seat belt, put the key in the ignition, apply the parking brake, and depress the brake pedal. Hey, but you learned it. Now you can do it in the dark and each thing you do is done automatically without thinking about it. The same happens with a firearm once you make it a part of your everyday life. You practice and train and all of a sudden safe gun handling becomes second nature. And it should!
5. Quick closing thought. Do your homework and get in a class. You are totally capable of protecting yourself with a concealed firearm and I want you to enable that capability. You can do it and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t!
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