What NRA Instructors Are Seeing

[Paladin]

The numbers:

What NRA Instructors Are Seeing

As more than 17 million Americans have become new gun owners in the past few years, the NRA’s 125,000 firearms instructors have been busy training and teaching them about their freedom.

That number is staggering. And even more staggering is the fact that those 17.4 million new gun owners need training and mentoring

It really is amazing that in 3 years more than 5% of America just became gun owners.

[Tex1961]

Pretty spot on article. I don't do much basic pistol training anymore, but I do 2 - 3 LTC classes per week with a total average of 40 to 70 students per week. My last class Sunday (yesterday) had 23 students.

6 Female
4 African
4 Hispanic
3 Asian / Indian
Aged 21 to 75 years old.
I have had classes that white conservative males were the minority. Whereas in the past they were the consistent majority. The unfortunate flip side to this is that I have to disqualify at least 3 - 5 students per week from the range, and fail just as many who I actually let shoot. No experience at all handling a handgun. I have also had to give the class test verbally as English is not their primary language and they struggle with many of the words on the test.

As a general rule I'm pretty indifferent to who is sitting in the chairs. I'm just happy that so many people are waking up and realizing that they need to protect themselves.

[AF-Odin]

Agree with Tex. I do not care who is in the class as long as they are legally eligible to possess a firearm. I primarily teach LTC, but also do "Introduction to Pistol Shooting" (not the official NRA Basic Pistol). Over the last 3-4 years I have seen a huge increase in women and minorities in the classes. Due to my location near Fort Cavazos (formerly Hood), I also get quite a few in the 18–20-year-old range. Originally, it was just soldiers, but since recent rulings, I have had a number of 19–20-year-old female students whose parents felt that they needed to know how to shoot before going off or back to college.

Unlike Tex, my classes are a bit smaller (5-10) and for LTC full class, they are expected to know how to safely load, unload, and handle a firearm and as I put it, be able to hit the "broad side of a barn" at 3 and 7 yards. This is emphasized when they sign up and again at the beginning of class. Students in my full class rarely fail to qualify (though some just barely). Where I have run into a problem is with the On-Line students who insist that they do not need the 1-2 hours of instruction that is mandated and just need to shoot. I point out to them the section of the LTC 100 where I have to sign off that I gave them 1-2 hours of instruction. Failures of the on-line students for me run about 10%.

[Paladin]

using Census data:

17.4 million new gun owners/258.4 million adults = 6.7% of the adult population became gun owners.