The Iowa rush is on for CCW

“So those folks don’t know how to manipulate their firearms and they think they’re going to protect themselves,” says Feick. “That’s an absolute joke.”

I have to agree with Mr Feick, back when Ohio was pondering passage of a CCW Licenses, I advocated for Vermont style law, we instead got 12 hours of required training (they did try for 20 hours). Being an Instructor I started conducting classes, and at first when the rush started it was mostly shooters that not only knew how to shoot, but understood the difference in target shooting and self defense shooting.  But as time went on we started seeing a lot more people that were simply afraid and wanted to get and carry a gun.
While one long day of training will not fully prepare them, we hope to give them a pretty good idea of what they are getting into, and hopefully send them in the right direction.

I've heard other Instructors say their students will never need to defend themselves, which is well BS they do not have a crystal ball, at least one of mine was in a shooting and prevailed. The one problem of little, or no training or poor training is the students lack the confidence to carry, which means they won't have it when they need it.

I also fully realize that very likely the only training 90 percent of my students ever get will be that 12 hour class, I give them all I can, in the time I have them.

As a former, and hopefully future student of Massad Ayoob, a quote from his article "Armed & Alive"

Maintaining a deadly weapon for self-defense is an awesome responsibility. It carries the legal power to do something now almost forbidden in even the loftiest worlds of medicine and of law: to perhaps deliberately end the life of another human being under an extraordinary circumstance.

Such responsibility demands a clear and complete understanding of the law, both criminal and civil. It mandates a high level of judgment, and the ability to activate it swiftly. It demands technical skills involving marksmanship and an understanding of firearms and combat ballistics and tactics.

While we can't do all of that in one day we try like crazy to get them headed in the right direction