It’s 9:15 a.m. on a sultry summer Monday in Winfield and I’m so giddy I don’t even mind that at some point soon I’ll be standing out in the July sun.
I’m beyond fashionably late – I skipped past an e-mail about my concealed-carry class starting an hour earlier due to the heat – as I pull up outside of Home On The Range Firearms at 512 Main. But I scoot up the stairs, go through the double doors and grab a seat in instructor Chris Jarvis’ classroom.
Ever since Kansas passed the Personal and Family Protection act in 2006 I’ve been curious: How thorough is the firearm training? What are the classes like? What does the process entail?
And honestly, Jarvis is the kind of gun nut I can understand, a modest guy, quiet, and most importantly – never over-the-top or in your face. We met last fall as classmates in Winfield Police Department Winfield’s Citizen Academy.
He’d known I was curious about the concealed class and invited me to sit in.
You need eight hours of training from a certified instructor to join the more than 540 Cowley County residents who have applied, since the program began four years ago, to conceal and carry a handgun in the state of Kansas.
Much of Jarvis’ class involves what most any class on any subject does – lots of reading, listening and boning up for the exam at the end. Oh, and there are plenty of guns to go around, too.
I’m comfortable in saying that in one day at Home On The Range, I put my hands on more types of firearms than I have in the rest of my 37 years.
I feel like I learn quite a bit, including that a lot of handguns, especially revolvers, have no safety mechanism on them. Forever, I’ve believed every single modern gun had a safety. I guess I thought it was a law or something.
Jarvis explains that revolvers require such a strong trigger pull that a safety isn’t necessary.
I also learn that words like pistol and revolver mean something just a little bit different in firearms vernacular – when to me they’re all just words for gun.
It’s a little reminder that really, I don’t know a heck of a lot about guns and their varied features.
My dad’s family – 11 kids strong – always had rifles and shotguns hanging on the walls of their rural farmhouse. But they were off limits to kids, obviously.
Sitting still for hunting and fishing was never my thing, so really my limited chops with guns came through using a BB-pellet rifle I got for Christmas one year. Luckily I never shot my eye out.
Dad was a stickler for safety, and insisted I wear eye protection shooting the pellet gun, even though a lot of my friends didn’t. With all the precautions to take, going out shooting seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
So I never built much of an appreciation for it and over time, working in the news, covering crimes and court, I began viewing guns as the tools of the drunk, mean and stupid.
I know lots of responsible gun owners but have run into a bunch of reckless ones, too.
It comforts me when Jarvis tells me that my opinions have validity. Certainly, he’s supportive of a person’s right to own a gun but he’s aware there are plenty of people not responsible enough to do so. Over the years, he’s asked some people in his classes to reconsider getting their concealed carry license, at least temporarily, if it appears their attitude toward guns is bad.
As an instructor, he’s shouldering considerable responsibility. We’ll take a test and shoot live rounds at a paper target – and all that paperwork Jarvis is required to keep on file for 10 years, just in case.
By 11 a.m., we head to a basic shooting range Jarvis has set up at his family farm, for use during the shooting portion of his classes. This is the part I’ve been really excited to get to.
We put up some practice targets and my classmates ready the handguns they’ve brought with them for class.
I get a special treat, Jarvis will let me shoot his customized 45-caliber, Colt 1911, a gun he’s had since the late 1970s that he often has at his side. It’s heavier and a little more old-school looking than other, more modern, handguns.
I love it.
The first time, Jarvis loads the gun for me and prepares it to be fired. I take sevens shots at a practice target. Shots that are silky smooth.
The weight of the gun limits recoil and makes it pretty easy for me to control. All the shots I fired are clustered pretty tightly in the middle of the paper target.
“Heck,” Jarvis says and lets out a little chuckle. “You don’t need any practice. Let’s qualify.”
As the sun beats down I stand 3 yards away from the target. Per state requirements I take five shots, one-handed from three yards away, 10 shots two-handed from seven yards away and 10 shots two-handed from 10 yards away.
I need 18 of 25 shots to hit the designated area of the target to qualify. Again, all of my shots are gathered tightly in a group in the middle of the target.
My classmates qualify too, even though one gentleman is shooting an older-looking, single-action handgun that seemed tougher to shoot. We cook under the sun, as it’s nearly noon when we round up our spent brass.
For the second time in less than a year, heck the second time ever, I’ve fired a real gun. I confirm what I learned when I shot during the police academy – that I sort of have a knack for it.
My aim is good.
The contrasts of the shooting range still strike me. I’m nervous and unsure of myself, a lot. As I load rounds into a magazine, my hands shake a bit and I remind myself, under my breath, to keep the gun pointed down, without my finger on the trigger, to avoid accidents.
But once we’re cleared to fire and the gun’s pointed down range, I’m super relaxed. Shooting reminds me a lot of golf, you’re alone, you’re focused and how well you perform is mostly on you.
We head back to the classroom and spend the rest of the day putting in our time with the rules and regulations of concealed carry. Kansas requirements for the use of deadly force can be tricky, so Jarvis is careful to outline what can and cannot be done.
I stay long past the others, shooting the bull and making up for the time I missed early in the morning.
I check out some handguns and talk to Jarvis about the indoor shooting range he’s in the process of building upstairs from his gun shop. I can see myself shooting at the range on a regular basis for fun, something that surprises me a little bit.
I walk away with a sheet of paper I’ll need should I decide to apply for my concealed carry license. Since 2007, the state has received more than 34,000 such applications.
It remains unlikely I’ll ever pack heat. At least, not anytime soon.
But the experience is worthwhile and the added knowledge invaluable.
I’m glad I did it.
For information on upcoming classes, call Home On The Range at (620) 402-6700.