What did you NOT like about your Concealed Carry class?

[badgerw]

I'm doing some informal market research.

When you took your concealed handgun class, what did you NOT like about it? What could have been done better?

Was the location comfortable? The seats? Refreshments?

Was the instructor's style of presentation suitable? Were visual aids used? Was a course outline provided? Material for taking notes?

Bill

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Spectre]

I don't remember anything I didn't like. He spent most of the time going over case law and hammering home when we can and can't use deadly force, what to do if we have to use deadly force, and how to adjust our behavior to avoid conflict as much as possible as long as we are carrying. He then finished it up with a point shooting qualification session. Everyone sucked at first, and everyone was really looking good at the end.

The guy was John Caile and he helped auther Minnesota's carry permit law.

[USPnTX]

I have to say I didn't like the woman in my class that got totally po'd when the instructor informed her that a CHL would not make it legal for her to shoot the teenager down the street that was breaking her lawn gnomes.

Seems that she was so enraged by said lawn gnomes destruction that she was going to take the law into her own hands. As the rest of the class sat with jaws dropped to the floor (the woman was "dead" serious - pardon the pun) the instructor regained his composure and suggested that the woman excuse herself from the class and never return.

Man...truth really can be stranger than fiction!!

[jongle]

I am a lawyer (retired) and the presentation on the legal aspects of carrying was done by videotape by a local prosecutor with an obvious anti-gun bias. I felt required to set the record straight, but if one took this dude at face value, no one would ever carry.

The rest was NRA stuff which I felt was very valuable, despite being a shooter since childhood. My wife attended the classroom portion and got a lot out of it, and she is not a shooter.

[purple88yj]

In NC, the class is eight hours of mind numbing videos going over some rather vague scenarios, and the incessent droning of an Assistant Attorney General mumbling about this and that.

The gent that hosted the class is a very astute man. I honestly believe that he would have had a much more informative class than the agonizing video sequences we were suffered to watch.

[cmidkiff]

CCW clases by nature have to be set up so that absolute beginners can get through them. I'm not a fan of having to take a class (or get a permit!) to exercise your rights in the first place.

That said, I am a huge supporter of training! I've had better classes, but they were designed around a particular theme, rather than covering all the legal and ethical issues involved with CCW, and trying to verify that you are 'qualified' through some absolute joke of a shooting 'test'.

Probably can't tell from the above statement, but I enjoyed my CCW class. We had all skill levels represented, and the instuctor did a good job trying not to bore the heck out of those more experienced while not loosing the new shooters. Tough balancing act... I'm glad I didn't have to try it myself!

The one knock I had against it was that the 4 rules were not stressed... one slide of the NRA's 3 rules was shown, but that's about it. The 'keep guns unloaded' rule doesn't fit CCW anyway, and I like Cooper's 4 rules much better.

[P95Carry]

I teach the NRA courses - no CCW class, per se in PA.

When doing Personal Protection we have an LEO or similar in to do the law side and otherwise follow the NRA format.

Not sure how important this might be to others taking classes but - the guys I work with I know well - we all know each other. And so we have quite a bit of light banter within the whole thing - letting this spill over gently into the students. From our feedback we have consistently felt that having some degree of humor and levity helps things along. Students relax more and get to know each other quicker.

I feel that being talked ''at'' is never too useful - being talked ''to'' is way better and so keeping everyone included I find essential - friendly but formal too.

[Muddspufin]

The only thing I didn't like about my class was that it seemed to be a firearm training class in part. The last half was very informative, going over deadly force and other important aspects of carrying concealed. But the first part covered types of pistols, cleaning and other basic firearm subjects. The way I look at it, if you don't already know this info, you probably shouldn't be carrying concealed. We had to asian women in our class that had never shot before and were getting their concealed. I don't think the CCW class should be used for training purposes. Aside from that, I learned alot and felt much more prepared mentally for carrying concealed.

[Leadslinger]

I have no complaints . but then again I didn't attend one.

In Fla. Ex Military doesn't have to attend to get a CCW.

[JD]

It was living proof of the old saying "Those that can, DO. Those that can't, TEACH."

[Greg Dunn]

is not something the instructor did, but the state made the qualification course so easy a blind retarded chimpanzee could pass it.

[Kimo]

I have no complaints . but then again I didn't attend one.

In Fla. Ex Military doesn't have to attend to get a CCW.

I'm in the same boat. But I'm gona take the class just for the experience vary soon.

[Ti Carry]

Mine was cool, no problems at all. Missouri requires 4 hours of law, so class time and 4 hours range time and 2 hours of full auto after, that was a bonus if you wanted to stay.

Very informative and the range time was the better part of course, my instructor had anything from .25 caliber to .500 S&W that we could shoot to get our range time in. I really don't believe that we should be made to take a class to excersize our 2mend right's either! but after seeing the people that were in the class about 28 total, most or atleast 20 of those people, men and women had no clue what they were doing. So after seeing that first hand, there is no doubt that an 8 hour class is needed for the basic safety traning that the class offers for most people.

I grew up around gun's, hunted, practiced at the range, was taught by one of the greatest teacher's there is, my grandfather! so I just figured everyone was brought up like that, boy was I wrong.


Ti

[Joshua M. Smith]

Indiana doesn't require one, but I was in the Explorer Scouts with the Sheriff's Dept. We were instructed with Glock 22's. Overall it was great: Rick, a friend, ex-SF, fine deputy (at the time; now he's Capt), counter-sniper for the dept., was one of the instructors as was another friend of mine.

We did the "pencil in the barrel" trick. That got tedious, especially with Glocks.

The things that really bit however:

1) The sheriff didn't give us enough money to buy a lot of ammo, so we only got a magazine of live fire apiece.

2) Same sheriff only granted us one target. I chewed out the part of the target that I was told to, but still, it would have been nice to have my very own target.

3) I couldn't bring my Taurus as insurance would only cover the Glocks. I could have done much better with the Taurus.

The thing that rocked however was an extension of the training. We challenged the Wabash Police Department to a paintball match. I wasn't good at hitting... I'd shoot and the ball would veer off. I got stuck in a crossfire watching my paintballs go every which way but straight. The ones that were coming at me did the same, but one of his went straight for a change and smacked me between the eyes. Still, it was fun and I found I could shoot and hit in some really weird positions.

They even made the classroom time fun. They got the goriest gunshot pictures they had on file out and passed them around. Students were excusing themselves to the restrooms left and right.

Josh <><

[ccw9mm]

When you took your concealed handgun class, what did you NOT like about it?

Poor coverage of those areas that are, effectively, shades-of-gray distinctions. For example, how much aggression warrants a reasonable person to conclude it's a serious attack that would cause one to fear to grave harm, versus merely an exhuberant idiot bent on taking a few cheap shots with fists and having no such intent to badly harm? Soft issues like this were non-issues in the little CHL classes, as they didn't have the background. I've taken several of these, and they're basically all the same. (Now, the Ayoob LFI course I've got coming up should fill in many of those gaps. Got to love quality training.)