Initially, we have put a lot of focus on gardening because food is a top priority. If you don’t have food and water nobody will last very long. However, Jon and I both know that personal protection of ourselves and family is also very important.
Neither of us have a great deal of knowledge with guns but we did have a little exposure to them over the years. My Daddy always had several different kinds growing up, but I never really did much target shooting. About the most I ever shot was a 22 rifle and that was many years ago. We had both been wanting to get some training and also get our conceal carry permit.
This would be a costly process. There was a cost for the class, a cost for the CCP application, and of course a large cost for a firearm. We were finally ready financially to take that plunge. So what did we do on one of our first days off of our “vacation” this summer? We attended our CCP class at First Shot Personal Protection, Inc. in Walkertown, NC.
There are many places where you can go take CCP classes around here like the Sheriff’s department or the nearby indoor shooting range. Before we found out about First Shot Personal Protection, we really hadn’t decided on where to go. A girlfriend of mine from work actually told me about it because her and her husband had recently completed their class there. She highly recommended it and now I know why.
Larry is the instructor and him and his wife Kathy do the classroom instruction in their home in the basement. They are such a fun couple. They do give classes for groups, but I was happy to know they would let us take the class just by ourselves. You see I am a bit of a perfectionist. For some reason I think I should be able to do everything perfect the first time. Well of course that is not humanly possible so in situations like this I can have a little performance anxiety. So, it was nice to know we could schedule a small intimate class. Additionally, as I did not have a lot of hands on experience with firearms, I did not want to be in a large group where I would feel rushed and unsure of myself. I really appreciated the individual personal attention. It really helped with my confidence level.
There were several hours of classroom time with instructional videos and going over the laws and safety guidelines. Then in the classroom we learned about the main parts of a gun and learned the proper way to safely handle them. They have several different types of guns so we could get some exposure to the different look, feel, and operation of them. At the beginning of this process I was given a 9mm and I just could not pull the slide back. It was a bit stiff and I was nervous too. My hands sweat when I am nervous and that made it even more difficult. So I started to get frustrated quick. They were trying to help and tell me what to do and at some point I had a mini-meltdown. It wasn’t pretty! Larry calmed me down pretty quickly and gave me a towel for my sweaty hands. I eventually got it, but the gun really was not for me. I really like the 380 they had. That seemed to fit my hand perfectly and I could pull the slide back without getting upset…lol. I also liked the 38 revolver. The rest of the day there would be the occasional joke about my little mental moment. It was quite funny afterwards.
The class has the option to bring your own gun or you can pay a little extra and rent 22 caliber handguns to practice and qualify with. As we did not have our own guns yet, we opted to rent the 22s. Not only did we get exposure the the 22s, but also the other various models. We practiced holding them properly, loading them (toy bullets), drawing from a holster, and a couple of different methods of shooting.
In the afternoon, we went to their outdoor shooting range for practicing and then qualification. Before we qualified we had the opportunity to shoot a few rounds from some of the various handguns we had worked with in class. I wasn’t expecting that and found it to be very helpful.
