Saturday, April 3, 2010

Ballseye's Gun Shots 52 - Firearms Training For This Year

If you shoot, and shoot well, then you know that you cannot get enough practice and neither can you get enough training. I shoot four times a year to qualify for my job and usually at least a half dozen times to many more than that for fun and practice and training. The thing is though, when I shoot away from work - any training I do is self taught. It's not bad, basically it is practice of things I have learned over the years with some new innovations or twists that I add now and then. This year is going to be a bit different for me, the reason it will be different is because I am planning on retiring at the end of the year (if all goes as planned). Once I retire a lot of the training that is available to me now as an LEO will not be available. I am not getting it for free or at a discount, it is just that some training outfits require you to be an LEO to take their courses.

For example, I have registered, paid for and been excepted for the NRA Law Enforcement Instructor for Handgun and Shotgun course being given in Las Vegas, NV this coming October. While they will sometimes allow a non-law enforcement person to take this training, it is much more likely that you will be excepted if currently in service. I am taking it now in anticipation of being able to supplement my income once I retire by training others - both LEOs and non-LEOs. How I talked my wife into letting me go to this one is easy to explain - she is coming along for the trip. It is a 5 day course and I expect to be in Vegas for 7 or 8 days. I have got to start making reservations for shows now, last time we were there we did not see any of the headline shows because almost all of them were sold out 6 months in advance.

Another course, that I just signed up for is one that I was taking at the moment of the attacks on 9/11. I was not in my office at the WTC but was instead in CT at Glock Armorers' School. A coworker and I left once we heard the news and headed back to the Customs office at JFK Airport to see what we could help with. he was lucky enough to go back to another school, I missed out. So now, I will wind up paying for it myself. That is okay by me, it will be another feather to add to my cap in retirement - something else that might help me turn a buck now and then. The Glock Armorers' School is being offered just a fairly short ride from where I live up in Peekskill, NY. Basically it will be the cost of the class, gasoline and tolls and maybe lunch.


I may sign up for a couple or few more firearms' training courses throughout the course of the year. I am especially looking toward instructor qualification courses so more courses along those lines will be sought out by me as time goes on. Maybe something line Home Defense Training Instructor, or rifle instructor and so on would be called for. I may also look into something like Front Sight, although that one may be a bit too expensive for me. Time will tell.

All the best,
Glenn B