Gun/Firearm classes (Colorado Springs, Eagle, Dillon: houses, rent, lease)

[sskkc]

We are planning on buying guns this spring. I do not want anyone's opinions on gun ownership, but I do need legitimate advice on where to go/what to do.

I've done some preliminary research on the subject and have found that taking a class PRIOR to purchase is the smartest move.

Does anyone have any advice on where I can go in Colorado Springs for such a class or should I just contact the NRA?

[COflower]

Check with Dragon Arms, here's their weird website: Dragon Man's

They will point you in the right direction and I think they may offer classes according to this page?: Shooting Range - National Registry

Um, there's another gun group that is separate from the NRA (not political like the NRA) but the name is slipping me. But Dragon Arms is one of the biggest in the area. Before my friend moved out of state we were to go and have him teach me (he's former military) how to shoot and maybe I can get him to take me when he's back in town soon.

Honestly though, not sure why people would have a problem with a person asking about how/what/where to learn the best way to shoot. This is hunting country after all and even though I don't own a gun, I used to be a member of the NRA. I'm all for people arming themselves in whatever manner they feel they need. Me, I have a baseball bat!
< grin >

[Bob from down south]

I also recommend that you ask some questions about the training you'll be getting. Having firearms in the house is about more than just being able to load it and not blow your own foot off in the process of shooting.

From my perspective as a former instructor, here are a couple of important topics a good course should cover beyond simple marksmanship (and many do not).

1. Legal environment--what are the local laws regarding firearms? Under what conditions may you carry them? Where can you shoot them legally? What are the laws regarding use of deadly force in self defense and defense of others? What type of ammo is permitted? Is registration required?

2. The will to use a firearm. If you haven't thought through...in depth...the entire process of how you would use a firearm to defend yourself, you risk placing that weapon right into the hands of an assailant. First, you have to know, without a doubt, under what circumstances you will fire. Those circumstances must include any situation where the assailant approaches close enough to disarm you, for example. If you can't honestly tell yourself that you will fire...don't get the weapon out.

3. You absolutely must be able to desafety the weapon and use it--every time you pick it up. I used to teach classes, and I can tell you I've had too many people that had been trained very recently (in the week or two before) pick up their pistol in a proficiency demonstration under very little pressure and attempt to use the weapon unloaded or with the safety on. That won't work very well with a real badguy that might know enough to see that the safety is still on.

4. Functional storage. Lots of folks put a weapon in their house...hidden away, unloaded, and with trigger locks installed. Great to do if you anticipate having five or ten minutes to dig out, unlock and load the weapon. Not a good thing at 2 AM with a strange flashlight beam darting around the living room. There are a large array of locking gun safes with various types of locks where a loaded, ready weapon can be kept locked away from kids, yet readily accessible in an emergency. Most courses teach the need to lock weapons...lots do not address the need to lock it in a place and manner that will allow it to serve its intended function.

Bottom line, the course should do a lot more than just teach you how to load and fire a weapon (but it does need to include that).

[otowi]

Have you looked into Hunter Safety Courses? They would be pretty frequent and would include some gun use and gun safety.

[Bideshi]

Originally Posted by Bob from down south

2. The will to use a firearm. If you haven't thought through...in depth...the entire process of how you would use a firearm to defend yourself, you risk placing that weapon right into the hands of an assailant.

There is nothing more useless, or dangerous, than an unloaded home defense weapon.

[ryanek9freak]

I concur. As a CCW holder, I agree with everything Bob said.

Oh, and FYI, El Paso county is just about the most liberal place to live when it comes to gun laws. It's very easy to obtain a CCW licence, as opposed to other counties, because out sherriff is just plain awsome.

And there aren't that many places that you can't carry your weapon into.

[TheBeach]

I live out here in Peyton and one day I called the El Paso County Sheriff's Office about shooting on our property. They said no problem. Go ahead and shoot. Cool I reload, so I can just shoot and reload all day long on my Dillon RL550B and not have to go to a shooting range. Save a few bucks and I can rapid fire - no more one second rule! The area where I'm at is so open I can skeet shoot too. We do have some freedoms out here, but I encourage people to get professional lessons on gun safety because you only need to screw up once...

[Swampy101]

I guess we just had a home owner use the "make my day" law near my house. Shot and killed someone. They took him in for questioning, then released him and it's all a done deal.

I shoot, I want to get back into reloading, but funds aren't there just yet and just about all of my neighbors shoot, so we're a gun friendly neighborhood (except one person anyway). Next door, my neighbor has a steep hill that he's cleaned out and made a nice box shooting area to shoot into. He was telling me a neighbor called the cops (we're in S. Douglas county btw). Cop showed up and laughed and said he'd never come out again.

Another neighbor hosts the 4h club and does small bore rifle shooting stuff with the kids on his property.

I mainly do target shooting and if I see a rodent, it's dust.

But yep, Bob speaks the truth.

[Newport Jill]

Go to utah and take a concealed weapons permit exam there. Utah allows you to carry conealed (including reciprocity with Colorado) in 36 states. I know i'd rather have 36 than one.

If you haven't gone for your permit, your instructor will usually do your course in different parts. 1. Away from the firing range, so you get aquainted with various weapons, how they work, essentially even if you never intend to shoot it, it's a good education. You also get a feel for the guns you like. Then, after you take a written test (and hopefully pass). YOur instructor will accompany you to a firing range, where you will fire a variety of guns (i fired, in this order, an AK-47, 2 .357's (known as 38's), 2 40 caliber - a single and then a double (.40 are what police use, since 9 mm are outdated and the criminals have police officers outgunned if they only have 9mm), and finally you have .45 caliber guns and even .50 (.50 are rarely used for a carry around gun, i am quite small, so my instructor said i didn't have the body mass to fire the .50).

By reading your post, and I am NO expert (personally, i think you should talk to a local law enforcement officer). If you are shooting rodents, wouldn't a BB gun suffice? If you are worried about personal safety in your home, I think most people would recommend a Shotgun, since that cocking noise is enough to make anyone run around. I don't think a pistol (even a 9mm) is for you.

I do recommend, that if you go for more than a BB gun, you do get proper training, licensed and go to the shooting range often and practice.

If at a later date you decide you want something else, Colorado has no shortage of gun shows.

[Swampy101]

Jill, it would appear that your instructor may not have been fully qualified to teach if he said you didn't "have the body mass" to fire the 50 caliber. I'm a short guy and 150 pounds. I was creamed by a drunk driver and was left with 3 plates and 23 screws to barely put my left arm and wrist back together. My wife is 120 pounds. I have a Desert Eagle .50 cal and we both fire it just fine. Just a few months ago, my 18 year old son was visiting and I let him fire it a few times as well. No problems. He's short and maybe a buck 10.

If you don't have the arm and wrist strength, I could understand you not being able to handle it. But if you're trained correctly in different stances, then as long as you have the wrist/arm strength, you can do it.

A BB gun is impractical for me really. When I'm shooting rodents out to 150 yards (ok, my best shot was 143 yards so far), a BB gun just isn't going to cut it. They aren't precise enough without spending a whole lot of money, which is better spent on a good .22 rifle that can do more.

The local ranger is fine with us all shooting targets and rodents and even coyotes as long as we're not shooting on or into Open Space and if it's coyotes, they should be raiding the livestock, which is when people here shoot them. I've never shot one yet, but some neighbors report shooting one coyote in the pack and the rest will stay away for months.

I've been shooting for 36 years and have shot with the Navy, Army Rangers, FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, a few different police departments and my brother is a SWAT officer/sniper in Newport News, VA. I've not been in the military, but friends and my brother have gotten me into some pretty neat competitions. My brother is retired Navy, however, he still shoots for the Navy competitions and ranks in the top 5.

I agree with you that even if you don't plan on shooting a weapon, a safety course is still recommended, if not needed even more than if you were to go shoot on occasion. Goes back to Bob's list above too. In short, you really need to take a course and you should go and practice at least on occasion.

Buying a weapon and putting it in your house for protection with no experience is a serious accident waiting to happen.

While shotguns are well known for being a favorite pick for home defense, I consider them more dangerous than anything else for home protection. Most likely, you'll be asleep when something happens, waking up very quickly. You'll have this big long gun, even if it is a pistol grip type. It's just too much to move around in the dark in my opinion.

My personal choice for home protection is a Glock in .45 caliber. I keep a magazine loaded, but not one in the chamber. The only safety is built into the trigger, so no fumbling around with anything like that. Cycling the slide of a pistol in the dead of night is plenty of noise in most houses to alert an intruder. I keep two shotshells on the top of the magazine and the rest is very light handloaded rounds for good control.

If you live in a populated area, think about where a shotgun blast would go if you were to miss. Through the wall and it'd keep on going for quite a bit. Shotshells in a .45 will most likely not go through drywall. Trust me, hit someone with one of those and they'll be on the ground screaming which will give you plenty of time to think about what's going to happen next.

I'm all for safety. I always have been. Owning a gun requires you to understand that regardless of any classes or experience you may have, accidents to happen.

A situation I like to refer back to for an example is that my brother, during his last few years in the Navy, was a police officer. His partner, a Gunnery Sargeant, went back to the office at the end of the day and they needed to clear their weapons. They had a big "pot" in the office for you to point your weapon into to manually cycle your chambered round into. The gunnie didn't remove his magazine completely like he should have and only popped it out slightly. He somehow cycled the chambered round out, but managed to pull another round back into the chamber. He stupidly clicked the magazine back in and started to turn away from the "pot" and pulled the trigger.

The gun went off and the bullet hit the bottom edge of my brothers holster, entered his leg, ricocheted off his bone where the bullet went down to his knee and exited the inside part of his leg and partially entered the inside part of his left leg right at the knee and it bounced back out and across the room.

Many, many strikes against this one. He was military. He was a gunnery sargeant. He was obviously not very bright since he pulled the trigger without the weapon pointed in a safe direction and not knowing where a bullet, if any, would go.

Anyway, even with a BB gun. Common sense and safety is still important, especially with BB guns being available in higher than normal velocities. A standard BB gun from Wal-Mart might get you 450-650 and maybe even on up to 800 feet per second, but more and more, you're finding 1000-1400 feet per second velocity BB Guns (more like pellet guns though). I watched a guy think it all out in his backyard with a cheapo 10 pump bb/pellet gun. Thought he'd do some target shooting against a cinderblock wall and he thought he'd better put something up or the pellet might bounce straight back at him. So he put some fiberboard up angled upwards slightly. Shot once and it still bounced back and hit him in the forehead.

It could have easily have hit him in the eye, but he was at least wearing safety glasses, so I got a heck of a good laugh out of it.

Now that I've totally gotten this thread off track, I just want to say, please, please take a safety course before buying or at least before handling a newly purchased firearm. Your neighbors, the kid on the bike down the street and the people standing next to you at the shooting range will highly appreciate it. Common Sense is very difficult to learn as an adult, if you haven't already learned it. If you're prone to making poor decisions based on common sense, think more than twice about purchasing a firearm. Of course, if you don't have common sense, you might not realize it to begin with, so maybe ask a friend if they think it's ok that you get one.