Faulkner
Member
Concealed Carry and the Mexican Restaurant - Chapter 3
Chapter 1 is here: http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge/298675-concealed-carry-mexican-restaurant.html
Chapter 2 is here: http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge...can-restaurant-chapter-2-a.html#post137041273
Finally the day came for the concealed carry class for Mr. & Mrs. Brady, the complainants from the Mexican Restaurant. Frankly, I didn't know if they would really show, but sure enough they did. I greeted them at the entrance to the event center where the class was held and introduced them to the other three instructors. The instructors were, or course, fully briefed on the sheriff's pet project.
The other dozen class members were not briefed about Mr. & Mrs. Brady. Now, I wouldn't say the rest of the class was exactly hand picked for this specific class, but we did do some juggling around to get a good mix of men and women in the hopes of making Mr. & Mrs. Brady comfortable with a diversified class.
The classroom session went great. Though Mr. & Mrs. Brady seemed at first hesitant to participate in the discussion or ask questions, they did finally do so. What I found to be very surprising is they did not engage in any liberal "guns are bad" anti-gun rhetoric. None at all. Eventually, I came to believe they truly consider themselves academics and were there to learn. As all good instructors do we told the class there was no such thing as a stupid question and Mr. & Mrs. Brady took us at our word. Having no previous gun knowledge most of the questions they asked, specifically Mr. Brady, were mostly technical in nature. He asked questions about the difference between single action, double action, and double action only revolvers. It was interesting to watch the light bulb come on when we talked about why big handguns are big and small handguns are small and the advantages and disadvantages of each. At one point, Mrs. Smith commented that she'd thought that all handguns could use high capacity magazines.
As I talked to them after the classroom session, they both told me how intrigued they were over the legal aspects of the class discussion and how if someone should, unfortunately, actually get involved in a self defense shooting, how it could literally ruin their lives. Mrs. Brady commented to me, "I was so impressed how you told the class over and over it's a very bad thing if you actually have to shoot someone. That's not the message we were expecting."
I reminded her that a concealed carry class is to help teach people about using firearms as a defensive measure in the hopes that one never, ever, has to use one on another human being. I also talked to her about my years in law enforcement and that I know through personal experience that there are mean people in this world, there are mean people in our country, and there are mean people right here in our community. As a cop, I would love nothing better than to put all the mean people in our community in jail before they could do mean stuff to other people, but even mean people have rights guaranteed in our constitution. I told them that mean people can be mean for a lot of reasons that may or may not be their fault. They could be mean because of drug and alcohol abuse, abuse as a child, mental defect, or just out of desperation. I've seen people that were mean because they were just mean. I also told her that mean people aren't necessarily stupid and they don't typically do mean things to people who will fight back or who can take them to jail.
So I asked her, "if a mean person was about to do bad things to you or your loved ones, would you rather have the ability to try and stop them, or wait 15 or 30 minutes or longer for the police to arrive, which may be too late!"
"We've always been taught that the police could get there in time", she replied.
"I've worked too many rapes and murders in my career to know we don't get there in time most of the time," I said.
She pondered on that a while.
After the classroom session we made the short trip over to the Sheriff's Department firing range. I fixed up Mr. & Mrs. Brady with a couple of Glock 19 compact 9mm's. I've trained a lot of people through the years who have never handled a firearm before so this was nothing new for the instructors or I. The first thing we did was revisit the safety practices we covered in the classroom session. They were very attentive and engaged. I suppose my prejudice towards them had me expecting them to hold their nose and pick up the handguns as though it were a smelly dead fish, but they didn't. What surprised me the most what that it was Mrs. Brady who seemed to be the most eager to get on the firing line.
Once on the firing line they did, well, okay for beginners. Since neither had ever fired a firearm they had no bad habits. We started off at the 3 yard line but I eventually let them shoot from 7, 15, and 25 yards as well. They didn't put very many rounds on the paper at 25 yards which lead to another interesting conversation with them. By watching TV and movies, they assumed they would be able to shoot man sized targets at 100 or 200 yards, maybe even a mile away with their handguns. And what about blowing up cars and shooting down helicopters? What about body parts being blown off and people sailing through the air after being shot?
"It's all Hollywood," I told them. "That's what sells movies and advertising for TV."
In preparation for this line of questioning, I'd brought an old 5 gallon metal gas can to the range that was about half full. After letting them confirm there was gasoline in the can, we had them back off to the 50 yard line while I shot four or five holes in it from the 25 yard line with my .45 1911A1. Then I fired a couple of rounds into the spilled gasoline on the ground. No sparks, no explosion, no nothing. Just a 5 gallon gas can that I ruined by shooting holes in it.
When I turned and walked back to them I said, "kind of disappointing, huh?"
Mrs. Brady asked, "why didn't it blow up or something?"
"Like I said, that only happens in Hollywood. They get paid millions of dollars to embellish the truth and it's gotten to the point that the public can't tell truth from fiction by what comes out of Hollywood when it comes to guns."
The sheriff showed up about then and asked me if we were finished.
"Yes sir, we were just wrapping it up."
He turned to Mr. & Mrs. Brady and says, "well, did you learn anything today?"
"I learned a lot!" exclaimed Mr. Brady
"It was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be," said Mrs. Brady, "and the instructors made the range time feel very safe. I had fun."
The sheriff said he had to run to a meeting, but asked them if they would mind calling his office and setting up a time with his secretary for him to visit with them about the events of the past couple of weeks. They said they would be glad to.
After the sheriff left, Mr. Brady asked me, "what's that all about."
"For some reason, the sheriff has taken an interest in you."
"Thank you for spending extra time with us. I thought you and the other instructors were very professional today and I want to thank you for your patience with us," Mrs. Brady said, and they left.
Who knows, maybe something positive will come out of all this. I don't think we have the makings for a couple of future NRA members, but maybe, just maybe, they came away with a different point of view.
Chapter 1 is here: http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge/298675-concealed-carry-mexican-restaurant.html
Chapter 2 is here: http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge...can-restaurant-chapter-2-a.html#post137041273
Finally the day came for the concealed carry class for Mr. & Mrs. Brady, the complainants from the Mexican Restaurant. Frankly, I didn't know if they would really show, but sure enough they did. I greeted them at the entrance to the event center where the class was held and introduced them to the other three instructors. The instructors were, or course, fully briefed on the sheriff's pet project.
The other dozen class members were not briefed about Mr. & Mrs. Brady. Now, I wouldn't say the rest of the class was exactly hand picked for this specific class, but we did do some juggling around to get a good mix of men and women in the hopes of making Mr. & Mrs. Brady comfortable with a diversified class.
The classroom session went great. Though Mr. & Mrs. Brady seemed at first hesitant to participate in the discussion or ask questions, they did finally do so. What I found to be very surprising is they did not engage in any liberal "guns are bad" anti-gun rhetoric. None at all. Eventually, I came to believe they truly consider themselves academics and were there to learn. As all good instructors do we told the class there was no such thing as a stupid question and Mr. & Mrs. Brady took us at our word. Having no previous gun knowledge most of the questions they asked, specifically Mr. Brady, were mostly technical in nature. He asked questions about the difference between single action, double action, and double action only revolvers. It was interesting to watch the light bulb come on when we talked about why big handguns are big and small handguns are small and the advantages and disadvantages of each. At one point, Mrs. Smith commented that she'd thought that all handguns could use high capacity magazines.
As I talked to them after the classroom session, they both told me how intrigued they were over the legal aspects of the class discussion and how if someone should, unfortunately, actually get involved in a self defense shooting, how it could literally ruin their lives. Mrs. Brady commented to me, "I was so impressed how you told the class over and over it's a very bad thing if you actually have to shoot someone. That's not the message we were expecting."
I reminded her that a concealed carry class is to help teach people about using firearms as a defensive measure in the hopes that one never, ever, has to use one on another human being. I also talked to her about my years in law enforcement and that I know through personal experience that there are mean people in this world, there are mean people in our country, and there are mean people right here in our community. As a cop, I would love nothing better than to put all the mean people in our community in jail before they could do mean stuff to other people, but even mean people have rights guaranteed in our constitution. I told them that mean people can be mean for a lot of reasons that may or may not be their fault. They could be mean because of drug and alcohol abuse, abuse as a child, mental defect, or just out of desperation. I've seen people that were mean because they were just mean. I also told her that mean people aren't necessarily stupid and they don't typically do mean things to people who will fight back or who can take them to jail.
So I asked her, "if a mean person was about to do bad things to you or your loved ones, would you rather have the ability to try and stop them, or wait 15 or 30 minutes or longer for the police to arrive, which may be too late!"
"We've always been taught that the police could get there in time", she replied.
"I've worked too many rapes and murders in my career to know we don't get there in time most of the time," I said.
She pondered on that a while.
After the classroom session we made the short trip over to the Sheriff's Department firing range. I fixed up Mr. & Mrs. Brady with a couple of Glock 19 compact 9mm's. I've trained a lot of people through the years who have never handled a firearm before so this was nothing new for the instructors or I. The first thing we did was revisit the safety practices we covered in the classroom session. They were very attentive and engaged. I suppose my prejudice towards them had me expecting them to hold their nose and pick up the handguns as though it were a smelly dead fish, but they didn't. What surprised me the most what that it was Mrs. Brady who seemed to be the most eager to get on the firing line.
Once on the firing line they did, well, okay for beginners. Since neither had ever fired a firearm they had no bad habits. We started off at the 3 yard line but I eventually let them shoot from 7, 15, and 25 yards as well. They didn't put very many rounds on the paper at 25 yards which lead to another interesting conversation with them. By watching TV and movies, they assumed they would be able to shoot man sized targets at 100 or 200 yards, maybe even a mile away with their handguns. And what about blowing up cars and shooting down helicopters? What about body parts being blown off and people sailing through the air after being shot?
"It's all Hollywood," I told them. "That's what sells movies and advertising for TV."
In preparation for this line of questioning, I'd brought an old 5 gallon metal gas can to the range that was about half full. After letting them confirm there was gasoline in the can, we had them back off to the 50 yard line while I shot four or five holes in it from the 25 yard line with my .45 1911A1. Then I fired a couple of rounds into the spilled gasoline on the ground. No sparks, no explosion, no nothing. Just a 5 gallon gas can that I ruined by shooting holes in it.
When I turned and walked back to them I said, "kind of disappointing, huh?"
Mrs. Brady asked, "why didn't it blow up or something?"
"Like I said, that only happens in Hollywood. They get paid millions of dollars to embellish the truth and it's gotten to the point that the public can't tell truth from fiction by what comes out of Hollywood when it comes to guns."
The sheriff showed up about then and asked me if we were finished.
"Yes sir, we were just wrapping it up."
He turned to Mr. & Mrs. Brady and says, "well, did you learn anything today?"
"I learned a lot!" exclaimed Mr. Brady
"It was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be," said Mrs. Brady, "and the instructors made the range time feel very safe. I had fun."
The sheriff said he had to run to a meeting, but asked them if they would mind calling his office and setting up a time with his secretary for him to visit with them about the events of the past couple of weeks. They said they would be glad to.
After the sheriff left, Mr. Brady asked me, "what's that all about."
"For some reason, the sheriff has taken an interest in you."
"Thank you for spending extra time with us. I thought you and the other instructors were very professional today and I want to thank you for your patience with us," Mrs. Brady said, and they left.
Who knows, maybe something positive will come out of all this. I don't think we have the makings for a couple of future NRA members, but maybe, just maybe, they came away with a different point of view.
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