So you got a gun for Christmas....What's next?

Excitement, anticipation and joy have flooded your mind! You opened up the box and you received the gift that you had been asking for...It's a new gun! You pick it up, read the instruction manual, imagine yourself at the range shooting nothing but the center of the target winning accolades and congratulations from all of your friends!

Then, a week later, that gun is locked in the secured storage box (or safe, or gun cabinet) and you start to ask yourself..."Okay, What's next? What do I do with this thing?"

It's a confusing question. A question for which you will get hundreds, if not thousands, of answers and opinions from YouTube, friends, family, your favorite search engine, etc.

From an instructor's point of view, you have several options. Think of it like a path. When you have your first firearm, you are standing at a pathway with a few choices. If you go left, you can start by getting your Concealed Carry permit. If you go right, you can take a class on gun safety and familiarization. If you go down the center path, about accuracy and marksmanship (hitting your target).

You aren't stuck on that specific path, though. You can take a Concealed Carry class, and then take a safety and familiarization class (that's how I started). You can side paths, too. Learn about first aid and how to keep people alive after an accident. You can take virtual electronic shooting classes where you learn accuracy and marksmanship without wasting costly ammunition. There are many, many choices. We work with students every day to develop that path and get them the education that they need to journey on their path.

What do we recommend? With a first firearm, we generally recommend a safety and familiarization class (either the NRA Basics of Pistol Shooting, or the USCCA Basic Handgun course). Once you have that solid base of fundamental knowledge, we would then branch out to a Concealed Carry course (CCW) or a marksmanship course (Either the Drills and Marksmanship class or the USCCA Marksmanship class). Nothing instills confidence like splitting a playing card in half!

Contact us and let us develop a training path for you! We'd be happy to help.