If you are motivated to
take a shooting course at least partly because you want to be able to defend
yourself with a firearm should you find it necessary to do so, I am suggesting that completing a basic course does not prepare you to defend
yourself with a pistol. More advanced courses are available to learn how
to do that.
Having said that, in our view it is almost as important that you understand
the law, at least with respect to the use of deadly force, as it is to be
accomplished in defensive shooting techniques.
Assuming that Mr.
Zimmerman (currently accused of second degree murder in Florida), had done what
he apparently did in Georgia rather than in Florida, do you think that he would
be allowed a claim of self-defense? The answer is that he probably would
not be allowed that affirmative defense because in Georgia you are allowed to
use deadly force if your life or that of an innocent is at risk IF you did not
precipitate the incident. Following a suspicious person is not standing your ground. Being armed for self-defense does not empower us to act as a law enforcement officer unless we happen to be a Law Enforcement Officer.
Based on conversations I have frequently with civilians, many of whom are licensed to carry, I can state with certainty that most people who have incorporated firearms in their personal protection strategy and almost all who are just thinking about it do NOT know how what restrictions are in effect based on Georgia and Federal law.
WE HAVE DEVELOPED A SHORT CLASS TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES.
The first Friday of each month SMFTS offers a Firearms and
the Law class that addresses in terms of federal and Georgia law, the
possession, purchase, sale/transfer, transport, concealed carry rights and
limitations, the use of handguns and the use of deadly force. It is
usually about a three hour course with no gun handling at all. It's
purpose is to make sure that you know what the laws are that govern our effort
to exercise out Second Amendment rights.
There are 87 statutes in Georgia
to accomplish that. You can read them yourself by using the Georgia Carry
link on my resources page. At the bottom of that page there is a link to
Georgia gun laws. Not all of those statutes apply to you and I will tell
you that there is a significant amount of cross reference within several of
those laws. The NRA has a link to federal laws and some of those can be a
bit obtuse as well.
Our course takes three hours or so of your time and only $35
from your wallet. We think that is a good value and so does at least one
local assistant DA. For those of you who eventually want to take either
of the NRA Personal Protection courses from me, attending this class is a prerequisite.
Disclaimer: Neither the primary instructor or I are
lawyers nor does anything in this class constitute legal advice. The
purpose here is to educate you as to what laws affect you and ensure that you
know where to find them, where you can purchase insurance to cover a
self-defense shooting and where you can find legal representation.
The next two classes are on June 1 July 6. Seats
are available in both of those classes. You are cordially invited to
register for either of these classes or for any of the others for the rest of
the year.
We hope to see you in one of these classes. You can register for the class by clicking hereand submitting a registration form. If you would like to see a more detailed list of what we cover please click here.
If you
decide not to attend and armed self-defense is your thing please take the time
to examine the laws so that, should you have to shoot in self-defense you are
less likely to end up at the defendant's table in a court room and that if you
should end up in that situation that you have competent counsel and should you
prevail that you have insurance to cover the cost of your defense.
SMFTS Basic Rifle Course - NEW OFFERING: This one is for new shooters or those who have been shooting for a while but are not happy with their accuracy.
We will address safety, ammunition malfunctions, the benchrest, standing unsupported, prone and sitting positions, and the hasty sling, the fundamentals of marksmanship and the integrated act of firing one well aimed shot. Students will understand trajectory and zeroing theory.
The instructor will provide the rifle [S&W M&P 15-22 and ammunition (approximately 100 rounds)] Cost for this course will be $150 and includes range fees .
These courses will not appear in the regular class schedule. We will arrange them on a case by case basis. For a more complete description of the course please click here.
Let's say that you have just used deadly force as justified by law. What do you think is going to happen immediately after
you have prevailed in a self-defense shooting? Most likely you will
want legal counsel. Can you handle the expense of that on your own?
There are several organizations which offer services to assist with a justified self-defense incident. It might be worth your time to click here and check out what these folks offer.
Firearms and the Law and NRA Personal Protection Courses: Successful completion of courses like the NRA basic pistol courses should equip you to handle firearms safely under normal circumstances and to successfully engage targets when you are not under time constraints as you would expect to be in a self-defense situation. In order to improve your chances of surviving a life threatening encounter you might want to consider learning about defensive shooting in two environments and of the legal considerations of being armed for self-defense. The NRA offers two courses to accomplish this, Personal Protection in the Home and Personal Protection Outside the Home Basic and Advanced courses.
See the Courses page for pricing and to link to detailed information about these classes.
A prerequisite for registration for any of the NRA personal protection courses presented by SMFTS is attendance at the Firearms and the Law course. The content of this course satisfies the NRA requirement for all personal protection courses (PPITH and PPOTH Basic and Advanced) presented by SMFTS. This course also will be offered to anyone who wants to better understand the legal implications of being armed for personal protection regardless of their intention to attend personal protection courses.
PREREQUISITES FOR PERSONAL PROTECTION COURSES
Successful completion of the NRA First Steps Pistol Orientation or NRA Basic Pistol Shooting Course, a current NRA pistol competition classification card or a DD214 showing qualification with a pistol is prerequisite for the NRA Personal Protection in the Home Course. Another option is to arrange for pre-qualification test to be administered by the instructor.
The NRA Personal Protection in the Home Course is a prerequisite for the NRA Personal Protection Outside the Home Basic Course presented by SMFTS as is proof of application for or possession of a Georgia Weapons Carry License (Georgia Firearms License).
The NRA Personal Protection Outside the Home Basic Course is a prerequisite for the NRA Personal Protection Outside the Home Advanced Course. We plan on doing the PPOTH Basic and Advanced courses on two consecutive days with the classroom and most of the dry-fire work done on Saturday and the live fire on Sunday.
GREAT LIVE FIRE FACILITY
We have just taken a membership at the South River Gun Club and this is where the live fire lessons for personal protection courses will be conducted. This is a very good facility with several training "pits" with clean rest rooms close by. Range fees are included in the price of the courses.
See what out students are saying. Please click here to see what our students think about their experience with our instruction. We also have an account on Angie's List but there is really no
category there for a company like mine. Might be a while before anyone
posts a review there.
Need help with qualification or re-qualification or know someone who does?
It could be that a review of the fundamentals of shooting or draw stroke will do the trick.
It could be that diagnostics may help.
It could be that applying the shot execution sequence that we teach may help.
If you want to improve your shooting performance please contact us and let's discuss it.
You pay range, ammo and target fees. The rate for our time is $20 per hour for law enforcement and $30 per hour for armed security. If what we do does not help there will be no charge for our time.
Mission Statement: Provide basic
and intermediate firearms training
for those who are exercising or considering exercising their right to
defend
themselves with armed force but do not have the requisite set of skills
to do
so or for those who simply want to learn how to safely, responsibly and effectively shoot a handgun.
What we do: We provide NRA certified courses for
basic and advanced handgun training. We also offer classes not sanctioned by the NRA and individual coaching for both rifle and pistol.
Our focus is on assisting those
who are new to handgun ownership and armed self defense acquire the
necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to be responsible and competent
in the exercise of their Second Amendment rights.
Why we do it: The Georgia legislature has crafted and the Governor has
signed laws that permit law abiding adult citizens to carry concealed
handguns with some restrictions.
That same legislature apparently
thinks it is just fine to issue a firearms license to anyone who can
pass a Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) background check without
any requirement to determine whether the applicant can properly handle a
firearm.
The current law requires that someone who cannot so much as
tell the difference between a pistol and a toaster must be issued a
firearms license if they follow the application procedures and pass the
GBI background check.
Many people completely untrained in the
use of firearms (more than you would think) apply for a firearms license
every day and purchase a handgun & ammunition which may or may not
be the right gun and ammo for the intended use and without training, think that they are
ready to use armed force in self-defense. Sadly they are wrong. People who
fall into this category need to develop the knowledge, skill and
attitude to safely, properly and effectively use their handgun.
It is not as easy as it looks on TV. The concepts involved in safe handling of and proficient delivery of fire with handguns are not difficult to learn but they definitely do need to be learned and for most people the best and safest way to learn them is under the tutelage of a qualified instructor. Notice that the military does not rely on self study when it comes to teaching soldiers how to shoot. Ditto for the police academies. Some people might be able to learn what they need to know and apply what they learn without the assistance of a qualified instructor but based on our experience some things are best learned under the supervision of someone who understands the concepts and is capable of teaching them. Learning how to shoot falls into this category.
If you read what is written here and decide for whatever reason that you do not want to learn how to shoot with us then please, please find another qualified instructor to provide that service for you.
This site: The primary function of this website is to publicize our classes and the class
schedule and to provide an easy way to register for the courses.
This site also serves as an information resource for the shooting public
in the Atlanta area on topics related to firearms. We are not
reimbursed by anyone for the links we provide on the references page but some of those businesses receive a finder's fee for new students.
Those links are there because we find the content of those web
sites to be informative or the products and service to be very, very good. As with
anything you read on the internet you should verify any information that
goes against what makes sense to you before you use it in making
important decisions. SMFTS is not responsible for the content of any
web site linked from these pages.
We offer a free Armed Self-defense Orientation for groups of ten or more. Clickhere to learn more.
Once each quarter we schedule a Students Appreciation Night at the Range. I provide one-on-one coaching to the extent possible. Students pay for range and ammunition expenses. There is no charge for my time. To get an idea about what we do in these sessions check out the paragraph on Students Appreciation Night at the Range in the What's New link.
Our view of the Second Amendment:
With a business like this one sooner or later the subject of gun control and the Second Amendment is bound to come up. I want to make our position on that debate clear from the start.
We believe that our right to defend ourselves is established from a source far above any government. The founders of this
nation recognized that and you can see that view acknowledged in the Second Amendment, which means what it says in
plain English.
Evidence of that view is available in the
Federalist Papers and other statements made in print and in lively debates by the founders of the
country and in our view should be clear to any fair minded person based on an examination of the record and common sense. Check out this website to see what the founders thought about an armed populace. You might notice in reading the material on that website that the founders insisted not only that people be armed but that they also be proficient in the use of firearms. While it is true that at least to some extent we still have the right to keep and bear arms it is also true that many of those who exercise that right are definitely not proficient in their use.
If anyone can find evidence that the majority of those men felt that the Second Amendment does NOT apply to private citizens please use the Contact Form to send me a reference.
People today can debate how the Second Amendment should be interpreted today but they cannot logically argue based on the record against its intent at the time the Constitution was ratified. Just for the record the Bill of Rights does not grant us rights. What the Bill of Rights does is to limit the power of the federal government. It was created by the representatives of the people (most of whom at that time actually tried to represent their constituents) in order to gain enough support to form a workable government. Without those ten amendments (all of which address
individual rights and place limits on the federal government) the
Constitution would not have been ratified at all.
Nor in our view is the Constitution a flawed document (currently popular terminology). The founding fathers had enough foresight to provide a means for changing the Constitution should it prove to be lacking at some point in the future. We can still do that today by amending it just as has been done seventeen times in the past (not counting the Bill of Rights which would elevate the count to 27). Perhaps we would be better off today specifically but not exclusively with respect to the Second Amendment if elected officials at the national level were to adhere to their oath of office and actually support and defend the Constitution rather than ignore it. Perhaps the country would be better off if we were to require those who take the oath of office to actually support and defend the Constitution in order to adhere to that oath.
Watch this YouTube video in which Dr. Susan Gratia-Hupp testifies before a US Senate committee and attempts to educate the committee members about what the Second Amendment means. Click on Video to watch it. Senator Schumer apparently does not like what she says but he has the good sense not to challenge it. How could he? She is right and he knows it.
