What to teach people who are overwhelmed/scared?

[Hoi Polloi]

CJATE posted this in another thread:

There is a womans only safety class in Waco. it's designed for women who are afraid or don't know where to start

My wife was not afraid, but overwhelmed. 1/2 her class mates were afraid. Several of them have CHL now

Class taught things that I'd never thought to teach my wife.

I'd be interested in hearing what they covered!

[Texas Dan Mosby]

Overwhelmed or scared of what exactly?

Firearms? Defending themselves?

I would address the issue first through an intellectual approach, followed by practical exercises designed to condition mind and body to successfully manage fear / stress. Crawl, walk, run. Slowly increasing the stress as the trainee successfully conditions themselves to manage it at an appropriate level.

Each individual is unique, and there are some folks who just don't have the temperament for certain activities, however, most anyone can be conditioned to at least defend themselves.

Bottom line: Fear is nothing to fear, and is little more than an evolutionary survival mechanism that one may not be able to eliminate, but one can certainly manage.

[The Annoyed Man]

I helped with my first basic pistol class today courtesy of Crossfire-Training, since having recently taken the NRA Basic Handgun Instructor's course. The two women we worked with were both scared of guns, but wanted to overcome that fear and learn how to shoot. We had a very successful outcome. The one I was working with turned out to be one of the finest natural shots I've ever seen.

Lots and LOTS of positive reinforcement and gentle quiet corrections make for a happy gal with a gun. Both students left feeling pretty good about their ability to handle a gun safely, and pretty confident about their ability to shoot one reasonably well. They also left with a commitment to shoot recreationally as often as possible. You can't hope for any better than that.

[MadMonkey]

Sounds like they covered everything that could possibly happen to them, and it scared some of them half to death because it's not something they had ever (or ever wanted to) think about.

Whether it was a GOOD scare (training) or BAD scare (just scare tactics) remains to be seen....

[dicion]

Unfortunately, most of the people I know who are scared of guns immediately shut down when I try to logically converse with them.

One's reaction to me logically debunking their beliefs, fears, and things that they've believed for so long, is frustration and anger, usually ending in them just getting frustrated and saying "Well I just don't like them! Okay?!".. to which I ask them to articulate exactly why, and they can't, so they claim "I just don't!"

.. can't argue with that rational logic...

Oh well

A friend of mine actually tried to claim that while there are more car accidents per year than firearms accidents (After I showed him facts from a .gov source about vehicle accidents and firearms accidents, he finally gave up on that part and agreed to it), the "Accident rate per hours of use" is higher for firearms. Their arguement is most people spend like 2 hours a day in a car, while shooting a gun only takes a few minutes, and for every hour of car usage, there were less accidents than for every hour of firearms usage.

I seriously can't make this up.

Then again, Both of these 2 examples I refer to above are from people from New Jersey.

[SewTexas]

The first thing to find out is why are they afraid.

When I was in high-school my boyfriend shot himself in the head, yes, on purpose. He didn't kill himself, the bullet wasn't the right one for the rifle...something like that, I blocked alot of it, still don't remember alot of the specifics. It changed him though, the guy I loved basically did die. I developed a strong fear of guns, I knew in my head that it was silly, but in my heart, I hated and feared guns, didn't want them anywhere around me. A few years later in college, I had the opportunity to take marksmanship for PE, I did it....I breezed through bow and arrow, then came rifles...first day I broke out into a sweat, the officer (it was through the college ROTC) came over and asked if I was ok, I was honest and said I didn't know....he was patient, he knew from the first half of the class I probably had promise, he took his time asked once more if I wanted to drop the class (it would have been an incomplete) I said I was a Texas girl and the fear wasn't going to win, picked up the gun and shot it...I hit the paper at least, I got better later in the semester. He hugged my shoulder, said I really was a Texas girl and moved on. (yeh, I know, you can't do that anymore).
I say all that to say, the fear came from some place, but when I was ready and had the opportunity, I took control.
You have to find out, is the person afraid of guns because of an incident, or because they've been fed a load of garbage from the media and school system and have bought it all their life....if it's the latter, well, your battle is an up-hill one and you're better off praying for snow in Aug than getting into an argument with them.

[CJATE]

Everyone is diffrent. I can only speek on this class

1st. Identifying different guns
2nd how to make any gun safe
3 how to load revolver and auto, did not get into loading rifle and shot guns, but did cover how to make them safe
4 how to identify caliber. How to find it on gun and find it on brass
Then they went into safety, muzzle down range, finger off the trigger ect
Then spent a lot of time talking about protecting family, safety with kids, Cary options

They handled diffrent guns and talked about fit and feel

Broke for lunch and went to the range. Started with 22 rifles, then 22 handguns. Anyone keeping their 22 on a pie plate got to move up to a 9mm or what ever that person brought to class

Prior to class, my wife could take a loaded gun and shot it. She knew how to operate my cary gun, but did not like it.

Was nice for her to learn from someone other then me. We shot a lot before kids. She liked my 22, hated my 40's and would not shot my 45 because of how much bigger it was then my 40 ( that she hated)

After class she picked out her own gun, using the knowledge she gained. Got plastic in the mail today

[apostate]

For people who are scared of guns (and want to overcome that fear) or are interested in guns but don't know where to start, the curriculum outlined by CJATE looks good. An NRA basic class is another option.

This is a CHL forum and we focus on personal protection, but sometimes it's good to take a step back and remember that someone who is afraid of guns may be better served by a class teaching only gun safety and basic marksmanship. It's similar for those who are interested but overwhelmed and don't know where to start. Keep It Super Simple. Set them up to succeed. As they gain familiarity and confidence, they may be interested in learning about defensive gun use. If so, teach that when they're ready. However, if someone is afraid or overwhelmed, be respectful of their (current) limitations and give them a solid foundation in gun safety and basic marksmanship.

Some people are interested in learning about guns but aren't interested in a CHL, just as there are shooters who are not hunters. Texans buy close to one million hunting licenses each year. That says to me there are roughly twice as many hunters as CHLs in Texas. How many gun owners are in Texas? I think both hunters and CHLs are in the minority, even among Texas gun owners. So, let's give newcomers a good basic foundation, and they can decide where they want to go from there.

[RoyGBiv]

I've given several "anti's" their first shooting lesson. One in particular was very afraid of even touching a gun. I started slow, with a gun in parts. Put it together in front of her. No cartridges anywhere in the room. Then let her hold it, rack the slide, dry fire. Once she had some comfort that the thing would not fire unless you loaded it and pulled the trigger, I took her out to shoot a smaller gun (.22).

In the end, she became a decent shooter and enjoyed shooting enough to join us occasionally. She eventually married a friend of mine who was also a shooting buddy.

So..... I think the secret is to convince folks who are afraid to just sit and watch for a while... No need to touch or shoot anything. Just let them watch you handle the weapon properly while you explain things.... One on one... And let them ask questions... The rest will come.

[The Annoyed Man]

I've given several "anti's" their first shooting lesson. One in particular was very afraid of even touching a gun. I started slow, with a gun in parts. Put it together in front of her. No cartridges anywhere in the room. Then let her hold it, rack the slide, dry fire. Once she had some comfort that the thing would not fire unless you loaded it and pulled the trigger, I took her out to shoot a smaller gun (.22).

In the end, she became a decent shooter and enjoyed shooting enough to join us occasionally. She eventually married a friend of mine who was also a shooting buddy.

So..... I think the secret is to convince folks who are afraid to just sit and watch for a while... No need to touch or shoot anything. Just let them watch you handle the weapon properly while you explain things.... One on one... And let them ask questions... The rest will come.

This.

It is amazing how many people, particularly women, who haven't yet arrived at the "I've got to be animal mean to survive" realization yet, but they just want to get over their fear of guns because they have come to the realization that they may someday need to know now to use one. And they arrive at that conclusion on their own, without any help from an instructor.....which is why they seek out an instructor in the first place.

Demonstrating that a gun is unloaded and unable to fire before even letting them handle the gun is a good place to start. In yesterday's class, we used a video to help explain the mechanics of guns, and the "student" in the video is a woman who was afraid of guns before taking instruction. That was something that the two female students in yesterday's class could understand and relate to. Just letting them handle, load and unload dummy rounds, and dry-fire the guns of different types went a long way to dispelling the fear. By the time we headed for the range, they were nervous, but looking forward to actually trying it. They both did very well. The woman I was working with is a better natural shot than I am, so it was easy to encourage her to develop her skills. Long before it was over, she was well past her fears and having a really good time.

[Keith B]

Out own Crossfire teaches a Basic Pistol Class that is geared toward ladies. I am one of the assistant instructors.

I personally would much rather teach someone about gun safety and proper safety techniques who is totally or semi-unfamiliar with firearms than someone who has been around them their whole life but never had formal training. Breaking someones bad habits and then teaching them the correct way is harder than showing someone the proper way from scratch.

As for being overwhelmed/scared, the whole secret to teaching is to make sure they are comfortable with the portion of the lesson before moving on. Too often instructors have to try and push students to progress at the rate the rest of the class is going. This can be detrimental to the one or two students who are struggling to be at ease with the firearm as they never get past their fear or lack of understanding and end up even more frustrated with the situation. This leads to one of two things; either they give up and just quit trying or they decide to just go ahead and teach themselves, in which they potentially develop bad and possibly unsafe habits.

The key is to work with these folks more one-on-one and not push them. If that means they need more class time or special range time, then we will try our best to accommodate their needs.

We had a lady in one of the classes who was VERY nervous about a firearm. This was due to the fact her brother had accidentally killed himself with his fathers service pistol (father was a LEO) about 25 years ago. Her present husband had decided they needed a pistol in the home for self protection, but she was not so much afraid of handling the pistol as she was that it would be found by one of her grandchildren or accidentally discharge and hurt someone.

I worked with her and another student at the range when we started shooting. Luckily the 2nd lady was very at ease and shooting safely, so I could focus my attention on the one lady. I showed her that with a revolver, there was no way it would 'just go off by itself'. We looked at the mechanism unloaded and loaded and showed her how it all worked. Once she understood that we started shooting with a .22 pistol and let her get comfortable with the gun and let her learn that that SHE was in control of when it fired and when it didn't. Once she was comfortable with that fact, we moved to the family gun she had brought and she got comfortable shooting it.

At that point I told her 'You now control this gun, it doesn't control you. And, if you will always be in control of where the gun is and keep it safe, there is no way your grandkids can control it. That means if they are coming over it MUST be secured in a safe place such as your handgun vault. If your husband feels it needs to be out at night while you sleep, then you have to make sure that no one but you or him can get access to the handgun. If the grandkids are over for the night, and they have the potential to get to the gun while you sleep (like in a nightstand drawer), then that means you either leave it locked up and you can't get to it quickly or you find a safe that provides you, and only you or your husband, quick access while keeping it secures from little hands.'

Anyway, after we went over this a couple of times she was much more comfortable with the gun being in the house. I told her to make sure the husband ALWAYS secured the gun and that she was the verification. After that she advised while still a little nervous, that she was MUCH more at ease with having the gun around the house as SHE was in control.

So, long story short, everyone learns at different paces and need different methods to help get them comfortable. Is everyone trainable? No. Some folks just never get it. But those that are willing to listen, learn and accept are much easier to get past the hurdle than those that will not listen. And while it may take more time for some, a good instructor will work with them to get them to that point.

One last word. Very few wives can be taught by their husbands and vice-versa. Find an independent instructor, and if possible, even got together. I don't care who you are, you never stop learning, so even if the spouse thinks they are proficient with handguns, a good instructor and even the other students in class will teach you something new. As an instructor I learn something new every time I help someone with a firearm.

[TLynnHughes]

Oh, boy - I'd write a book on this topic if I could write well enough.

I hosted a number of classes overseas for ladies who wanted to learn about self-defense, but apart from the normal, expected reasons (past incidents, fear of the weapons, fear of the attacker, etc), the most unexpected and interesting fear was that of "letting go". Letting go of polite, civilized behavior and becoming (almost literally) an animal in order to survive an attack.

Many were really scared to see what they were really capable of doing - ripping open a cheek or throat with a finger, crushing a kneecap or hooking out an eye; a normal, civilized person really doesn't want to see that animal which co-exists with them. Even using cuss-words was a major issue; some of the ladies hadn't realized that nasty, violent and crude language alone had the power to freeze them in shock, wide-eyed and helpless - because they'd simply never been confronted by it.

Andy,

I've always enjoyed your posts. But this one nails it, in my opinion. There seems to be so much more "emotional" (for lack of a better word) between women and firearms. That has been my experience. I wish you would write a book.

T.

[Mr.ViperBoa]

My wife isnt afraid of guns. She asks me questions about them all the time and she knows how to use the shotgun we keep in the bed room, but she has no desire to shoot firearms. She said when she was young her dad made her shoot and then got angry at her. So she has no desire or interest to shoot them. To her defense her dad is a moron and over bearing. I have had to put him in his place several times so I understand how he must have made her feel. I dont ever push the issue of making her go shooting with me. I figure she will come around when she is ready to.

[Crossfire]

The woman I was working with is a better natural shot than I am, so it was easy to encourage her to develop her skills. Long before it was over, she was well past her fears and having a really good time.

TAM - just wanted you to know, your student has already contacted us about what a wonderful time she had on the range, and wants to schedule a shopping trip now to pick out her first handgun. Now, bear in mind, she was the one who only came because her husband pressured her into it, and said she would never own a gun of any kind, just wanted to learn how to operate one.

I really believe, based on my own experience, that most women fear the unknown more than they fear the gun. They just have not been exposed, and don't want to be embarassed by their own ignorance. So, when we educate the ignorance out of them, the fear goes away too.

Thanks for being part of our class yesterday. It is so gratifying when your students "get it" - when that light bulb switches on, and you see the change in their demeanor. You helped make that switch in at least one young lady. I hope you had as much fun as we did!