Thearmededucator

He's great. Ive kicked myself for years for not knowing who he was when I was younger. I went into Rangemaster when I was 19 or so, and didnt like the way some bald, old guy kinda talked down to me while I was looking at 1911s; so when it was time to get my permit, I got it elsewhere. A few years later I start instructing, and realized he was offering some good advice from years of experience. Kids....

I finally was able to get to a Rangemaster Instructor course this weekend, after several years of bad luck/timing. It was worth the wait. Tom Givens and Assistant Instructors Dr. Andy Anderson and Jeff Boren were simply fantastic. The facility and staff at Boondocks FTC were truly top of the line. The three days of coursework, a mix of classroom and range skills, was fairly intense, and the standards are high. Anything under 90% in either the shooting qualification or the written test will be considered a failure, and you will not receive a certificate. While our class outperformed the average washout rate of 15%, we still had one of our number not pass. I enjoyed getting to know the other students; who were great people and shooters to the last. Considering their skills and professionalism, the class averaged scores of 97.4 on the Qualification and 94.6 on the written test. Given these performances, I was both surprised and excited to receive the class Top Shot Award for the highest average between the two.

Gotcha. Sorry, I didnt mean to be intrusive; I just didnt want you to get a permit you didnt need. Best I can find is a list of Utah Certified Instructors by state. Contact information is on there https://bci.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2024/04/Certified-Instructors-Out-of-State.pdf

Might I ask why? Last I checked, technically Tennessee has greater reciprocity than Utah (Source https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/resources/ccw_reciprocity_map/ut-gun-laws/)

Armed civilians have never shot an innocent party in an active shooter attack, although cops have. Likewise, there is only a very small chance you'll get engaged by responding police officers, because, in the words of Ed Monk, "you'll be on your third cigarette by the time they get there." There is a single case where the cops mistakenly engaged an armed citizen who had ended an attack. In that instance, the attacker wanted to kill cops specifically, so he self reported an attack before shooting the cop he had eyes on. He was then shot and killed by an armed citizen. However, the Armed citizen then moved forward to secure the weapon and it was at that time the rest of the cops showed up. They saw a dead cop, dead citizen (actually the perp), and a man with a rifle. If either of those two circumstances didnt occur, the number would still be zero.

SROs are doing God's work, and this is intended to augment them, not replace them. The issue with SROs is a microcosm of the need for concealed carry in society at large. There are simply not enough of them to be everywhere. Statistically, the average active shooting injures or kills 1 person every 10 seconds for the duration of the attack, although the first minute is often many times higher than the last. Therefore, in order to limit casualties to less than 10, we need to stop an attacker in the first 30 seconds. My school is very lucky in the fact that we have 4 full time SROs. But our building is over 400,000 square feet and our property is over 50 acres. A 3 minute response time from SROs already on site would still average nearly 20 casualties. Think of armed staff as hard points or speed bumps to keep the Attacker engaged, allowing the SROs time to respond while simultaneously reducing casualties

There is a lot of that for sure, but I have at least 7 others in my building that I’ve spoken to about it that keep asking me when they can get approval.

Nothing in the text of the bill stipulates that, but there is also nothing that would prevent something like that being a local policy.

It really is. That said, I would greatly appreciate it if yall could start reaching out to your local school and police representatives to try and get some traction on it. One overlooked group that would likely have a lot of influence and speed in which this policy is impemented is the Tennessee School Boards Association, which helps set board policy in 132 of Tennessee's 141 school districts. Messages sent to communications@tsba.net that would encourage a speedy decision on implementing the policy would clear up a large bottle neck. Additionally, if anyone gets a positive reaction from any one of your local policy makers, please send me a PM so that I can follow up as well.

No, it is not. And its likely to cost me a decent bit of money. I have reached out to the school principal, school superintendent, local police chief, TN POST Commission, Tennessee School Boards Association, and the local School Board already, and so far each has given me the runaround, saying that they are waiting for one of the other groups to make a decision. No one seems willing to take the ball and run with it.

Yup. Not as often as I'd like though. They have a habit of scheduling on days I cant take off, lol

Thank you. I have been a firearms instructor for longer than Ive been teaching, and have taken multiple classes from the likes of Gabe White, Karl Rehn, James Yeager, Ed Monk, and several others; in addition to competition shooting. I also play OPFOR for a company in Arkansas against SWAT teams and high speed military units. It is my goal to actually be the instructor of such training.

Private schools had already been able to have any firearm policy they wish (The only thing TN likes better than guns is Private Property Rights), provided that armed individuals had a TN ECP.

I already have my requests in to my principal, chief of police, and school superintendent.

I did after moving to Alabama and returning