Front Sight

Glen and I went to a 4-day defensive handgun course at a place called Front Sight.  It was AMAZING!!!  There's so much to say that I don't even know where to start.  I just know that before FrontSight, I was afraid of guns.  Glen bought the handgun he wanted and I was SCARED to have it in my home cuz I didn't know much about it.  I'd see it and even though common sense says there's no bullet it in so it's not going to go off, I still had this irrational fear it was going to explode and hurt someone I love.  If anything, this experience gave me a sense of confidence and empowerment with a weapon.  Of course you always follow the 4 rules (1. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded. 2. Never let the muzzle (end) cover anything you are not willing to destroy (like your hand). 3. Keep your finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard til you're ready to shoot and 4. Be sure of your target and what's inline with your target.)  Now I know how to pick it up, check it, be ready to use it, and put it away all within a quick time period.  Not as fast as most of the other students in our class (I was the one with the least experience), but definitely a big improvement from where I was when I began.

Everyone had a weapon on them at all times.  A funny comment: An armed society is a polite society.=)  Everyone's got a gun so you don't want to make anyone mad.=)  Just kidding.  But it was amazing how friendly everyone was.  There were different courses going on over the weekend (rifle training, uzi training, etc.) and I'd guess there were at least 200 people there with about 30 being in our class.  The weekend was filled with thought-provoking lectures and then we had lots of hands on gun training.  Glen did tons better than I did, (one of the better ones in the class.  That Army training before going to Afghanistan probably helped.=) but that didn't matter.  I was the least experienced in the class so I ended up with my own instructor most of the time.  Even though I wasn't sure what I was doing, someone was there to help me every step in the way and never let me feel dumb for not knowing anything.  They were constantly complimenting the good and constructive criticism to improve the not so good.  We narrowed down my weak point to be flinching when I pull the trigger (I'm always scared of the gun jumping back at me ... I learned that's called the recoil) which results in my shots hitting low.  But when I don't flinch, my shots land dead on and that bad guy better watch out.=)  It was an amazing class and if you're ever interested, read about it at www.frontsight.com and check ebay for course certificates.  You can also request lots of free info which is what got me more interested in preserving our 2nd amendment rights.

This was our class.  We were all in pairs and took our turn either shooting or being the coach watching for safety and pointing out what might be fixed, etc.  

This was me getting coached on our first day and that's me putting a bullet in the right place.

Did I mention Glen was good?=)  Not to mention he looks good in pictures.  I've also decided that if we're ever in a firefight, he gets the gun and I get the phone to call 911.=)

On our 3rd day, we learned about tactical maneuvers.  When you come to a door or a corner, you don't want to be close to the corner like in the movies.  The further back you can get, the further around the corner you can see without being in the line of fire.  We got coached through the doorway and then we moved to our own individual scenario.

Every student took a turn throughout the morning going through a house practicing how to go around corners and through doorways and had to hit our targets.  I took my time (still trying to practice that flinching out of me) and hit all of the targets great.  Especially the hostage takers.  I got them both correctly in the head.  Woohoo!!!  I guess I work best under pressure.

This was Glen's target.  On the 2nd day, they started rotating the targets so you had a certain time limit (worked up to less than 2 secs. to hit the target before it flipped back.)  We learned how to present (take your weapon out) our weapon from concealment (that's why Glen's wearing a jacket in the hot Vegas weather) and then shoot during that quick flip.  Glen was amazing.  Me?  I asked them to have a special target that didn't turn and they were more than happy to oblige because their purpose isn't to get me up to the same speed as everyone else.  It's to know how to use the weapon and eventually get there.  There was a lady in our class, Sandy, who was fast.  I watched her trying to get tips when I missed a day.  She said this was her and her husband's 5th class.  She was where I was her first class and now she's speed lightening.  And her husband had the same problem as me (the flinching) and he got a distinguished graduate certificate (only 3 people the whole weekend got this).  I have hope that I'll get there and for now, I'm not scared of my weapon.