Author Glenn McDermott is the owner of the Firearms Education Center, and runs First Level Training, where he focuses on providing new shooters with the skills they need to confidently take their first shots on the live-fire range. He is an NRA Certified Pistol and rifle Instructor, and Chief Range Safety Officer. Glenn is also certified in defensive firearm instruction by the USCCA. This is the second of two blog posts.

Training with your firearm is important. As the saying goes, owning a piano doesn’t automatically make you a musician. There are several ways of training with your firearm, but the most important thing IS to train.

I like to train my students with a S.I.R.T. pistol. S.I.R.T. stands for ‘Shot Indicating Resetting Trigger’, and these pistols use a laser to indicate where your ‘shots’ are hitting. The resetting trigger simulates the feel of the trigger on your gun. These features help you developthe critical skills of sight alignment, sight picture and trigger control. Other tools are very useful when it comes to training. For example, the “iTarget Pro” uses an app on your smart phone to simulate target-shooting or air-soft guns. You could even set up a small laser ‘shooting’ range in your garage, basement, man-cave or she-shed.

It’s important to train with your surroundings. Not only do you have to train with your firearm, you must train in the place you may have to defend. What do I mean by this? Well, several considerations must be taken into account. What is ‘cover’? What is ‘concealment’? In what direction is it safe to fire?

A typical 9mm round can penetrate 6 layers of drywall easily, so you must pick directions in your house that it’s safe to fire from, and not dangerous to fire towards. For instance, in my home, looking out the front of my house, I can only shoot safely at a 10-2:00 o’clock position. The other areas in my home have houses in the line of fire, so they are not an option. Pick a safe spot inside or outside the home for family members to congregate out of harm’s way if an intruder has breached your security measures.

Make sure your home does not invite an intruder; home security starts with a secure home. Do a perimeter check, take a walk around your house and look for ways to get into your home. Think like an intruder. Do you have lawn furniture by a window that can be used as a step to enter by a window? This is just one way your home can be broken into.

Keep your house well-lit; burglars do not like to be seen. Use 3” screws on your door hinges and striker plates to make it more difficult to break in through a door, and have a code word to communicate a potentially bad situation to others in your home.

Taking all these factors into consideration, now you must ask yourself a tough question. Do you have the temperament to shoot someone? Are you able to shoot someone, knowing that your action may take another’s life? Do you know when to shoot and when not to shoot? These are hard questions that you and only you can answer. Ponder the consequences morally, ethically and mentally. If you do shoot someone, are you prepared to watch them die? If you have any problem with the outcome of a personal defense shooting, or the legal ramifications, then maybe a firearm in your home is not for you.

So then, let’s talk about some non-lethal forms of personal defense. There are some effective non-lethal defense tools on the market, one being pepper-spray guns. Kimber makes a very effective product called the “Pepper Blaster II”. It’s a compact gun that shoots an irritant-like pepper spray, at a speed of 112 MPH , with a range of 13 feet, powered by a CO2 cartridge. It’s a thick sticky substance that sticks on your attacker, and causes extreme eye and breathing discomfort, incapacitating him so that you can get away.

Another product is the “Byrna SD”. This gun shoots small paintball-like projectiles that break open on impact and expel a pepper “dust-like” substance that causes your attacker much discomfort and pain by affecting vision and breathing. If you have never seen these in action, search them on You Tube and see for yourself.

Finally, be a responsible gun owner. The gun owning community receives a lot of bad press, so be an advocate of the second amendment and your Constitutional rights. Know how to use your firearm safely, know how to fieldstrip, clean and maintain your firearm, and remember the three NRA safety rules:

• ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.

• ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

• ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

And treat all guns as though they are always loaded, know your target and what’s beyond, be sure your gun is safe to operate and know how to use your gun safely.

“The Firearms Education Center” – Be Safe, Be Smart, Be Educated.

Editor Note: check your local laws regarding the ownership and use of products mentioned in this post. Some States such as New Jersey are very restrictive.