Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
Hey DVC,80 percent is a bit optimistic, but I'll bite for now. The majority of civilian approved courses spend the first day without a round fired and concentrate on things like an intro into the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary to own and use a specific pistol model safely. At that point, the student has yet to even handle a plastic firearm....

Competence is an issue for me; I don't want a bunch of 40-hour fanatics running around base looking at every bearded individual as his next target and clutching his holster in the sick call line.
I've been to 3 Thunder Ranch courses, which should about typify the good shooting schools in the US. The first morning was spent in a classroom, the rest of the time, day and night, was spent on outdoor and indoor ranges. About 1200 to 1600 rounds were fired. The students were men and women ranging in age from mid-20s to their sixties and varied from being complete novices to spec ops types.

They were all extremely serious about things to begin with and the staff would accept nothing less. Everybody came out at least competent and some, including novices, came out a lot better than that. After seeing that I think you can turn out competent, serious minded shooters in just 40 hours of instruction. Of course, it was a bit of a self selected group in that they had to lay out their own money and a week of their own time in order to take the course.

One thing that might be germane to the discussion is the program that allows some airline pilots to carry pistols on the airplane. I believe they have to lay out their own money and spend their own time for instruction. That insures that mostly serious minded people apply for it.