SHOT Show!

2012 SHOT Show

 We'll be spending this week in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada for the 2012 Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trades (SHOT) Show.  I'll be sending out updates on interesting products and news from the show on this blog and via my Twitter feed.


Handgun Fundamentals for Women

We ran our first Handgun Fundamentals for Women class last week, and it went great.  Due to a couple of last-minute cancellations, we wound up with four students and four instructors.  You really can't do much better than that.  All of our shooters did a great job and we're looking forward to seeing them in future classes.

If you missed that class and you (or a woman you know) are interested, we're running it again on March 1, 2012 from 6:00-8:00pm in Robbinsdale.  For more information check our Facebook page or email women@qsitraining.net.

Low-Light

If you've never shot in low-light before, it can be a real eye-opening experience.  Statistics show that over 80% of armed encounters occur in low-light.  Unfortunately, shooting after dark is prohibited at most shooting ranges.  We solve this problem in a novel way: we rent an indoor range and shut off the lights.

Our low-light class is designed for shooters who have some experience with their firearms.  We teach a series of techniques for using night sights, shooting with and without a flashlight in low-light, and using weapon mounted lights.  We also teach methods for clearing stoppages and reloading while carrying a light.  If you don't have your own flashlights, night sight equipped gun, or weapon-mounted lights we have some you can try out.

If you are interested, check out our check our Facebook page or email lowlight@qsitraining.net.

Both classes are filling up fast, so let us know if you are interested.  If there is sufficient interest we'll add some additional classes.

Seven Rounds?

I ran into one of my permit-to-carry students at a New Year's Eve party this weekend. As we caught up, the topic turned to guns (of course). I asked him how much shooting he'd been doing.

“Not as much as I'd like to.” he admitted. “In fact, I don't think I've fired more than 100 rounds through my gun since I bought it.”

Sadly, 100 rounds is a generous amount of use for a pistol. According to a statistic attributed to an executive for Colt Firearms, the average pistol is fired just 7 times over its lifetime.

How do we define “average”? Remembering high school math, we take the total number of rounds fired, and divide it by the number of handguns.

Nobody's sure how many handguns there are in the USA. In 2009 a survey extrapolated there were 57,000,000 people in the US who owned “at least one” handgun.

People like me screw those numbers up; I own way more than one handgun, and most of the people I know own at least two. In addition to that, we shoot a little more than average. My M&P, purchased in 2008, has more than 5000 rounds through it.

The point here is that there are an awful lot of people out there who own guns and aren't shooting them. And that's a perplexing shame.