I made a quick trip to the NRA Annual Meeting in Dallas.  The NRAAM has basically become a copy of the SHOT show that’s accessible to the general public, combined with a lot of seminars and meetings related to various NRA programs.  The event usually draws more than 80,000 attendees over the multiple days.  Admission is free.  There are many, many blog posts and youTube videos all showing bits and pieces of the event out there if you search for them, way too many for me to link to here.

My experiences at this year’s NRAAM:

THURSDAY Pt 1

Arrived Thursday afternoon.  Very little signage explaining where to park. Parked in a commercial pay to park lot near the convention center. Was immediately approached by a panhandler asking for money.  Put my “Managing Unknown Contacts” skills to use twice, as I had to work around him to get to the pay station and then go by him again to get back to the car to put the tag in the windshield.

No clear signage explaining where registration was. Apparently I parked in the back of the facility, ended up on the back loading dock, and entered the vendor area past security, eventually winding my way to the front to the early bird registration area.  Despite being a Benefactor member, they didn’t give me a “Benefactor” ribbon, only a Life Member ribbon with my registration badge.

Saw some on-duty Dallas PD officers, told them about the panhandler in the parking area. Was disappointed that none of the 3 of them knew enough about the layout around the arena to know where the “P-Star parking lot by the loading dock” was.  But one of them did stroll off to go try to find it and look into the panhandling situation.

Had a stroll through the NRA store, where all the various NRA-branded items were on sale.  Propper, Vertx and 5.11 also had booths inside the NRA store, and I got to chat with one of the Propper execs who was working his own booth.  Double bonus, I was wearing Propper pants and a Propper shirt – all items they had discontinued – and got to talk to the exec about product needs of those carrying concealed in upscale business casual environments.  One big blind spot for all the ‘tactical’ clothing companies is that they think their market is cops – so garments have features intended to appeal to cops, on and off duty.  Reality is that there are less than 1 million cops, but more than 13 million carry permit holders. That’s a much bigger market.  Most of the “concealed carry” shirts and parts that these companies produce have pockets in weird places (Propper shirts have sideways secret chest pockets held closed by magnets) that do get noticed by women and others that pay attention to how others are dressed.

Most of the products I saw at the NRA store continued that “tradition” of being just a little too abnormal to go unnoticed in a true business casual environment.  Penny’s comment is that these companies need an actual fashion consultant, not just cops and retired military people, on staff to help them.  Little things, like making sure the plaid material on the pockets aligns with the plaid on the shirt, get overlooked.  (The whole Plaid Tablecloth shirt design approach has become cliche.)

This particular Vertx shirt includes an interesting feature: an integral “half undershirt” attached to the shirt, to make it easier to wear a single carry garment and still have a layer between bare skin and the gun. That idea is clever, but the shirt itself is too casual for professional wear.

(Aside: one company that probably *should* have been at the NRA show advertising their products is Untuckit. They make higher grade products designed to be worn untucked. I have several of their shirts, and their Austin storefront is staffed by people that are gun friendly – they are Ok with customers trying on shirts in their dressing rooms while wearing holstered pistols as long as it’s done discreetly.)

Carry Guard

Last year NRA rolled out a new program called Carry Guard that included both gun owner ‘insurance’ and a training component.  I have nothing good to say about any aspect of this program. For those that haven’t been paying attention, here’s a quick summary:

1) The insurance was poor compared to all other programs offered by non-NRA alternatives such as Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network.

2) At last year’s NRAAM, companies competing with Carry Guard in the insurance/legal market were not allowed to have booths. This year ACLDN had a booth but USCCA and others did not.

3) When Carry Guard rolled out, I contacted them about becoming a Carry Guard instructor and about hosting Carry Guard classes.  A year later, I (and apparently thousands of others) who contacted them have never been replied to.

4) An early Carry Guard misstep was to tell students they could not bring revolvers or 1911 style pistols to class.  This was only rectified after significant outcry from potential Carry Guard students and major industry manufacturers who produce revolvers and 1911-pattern pistols.

5) There are over 5,000 people certified to teach the NRA’s Personal Protection Outside the Home course – a class offering training similar to what the Carry Guard program offers.  KR Training‘s Defensive Pistol Skills 1, 2 and 3 courses are derived from, and aligned with, this NRA course. At this year’s NRAAM, tens of thousands of dollars were spent promoting the Carry Guard program — with ZERO dollars spent to promote ANY program, trainer, or course connected to the NRA’s Training and Education Division. The T&E division is the official training operation of the NRA  Not Carry Guard.  Instead, magazine-sized books were available, by the hundreds, promoting Carry Guard.

As I discuss in my Beyond the One Percent presentation, basic level NRA instructors, who provide the state-mandated training for concealed carry and Hunter Education, are the primary source in the US for most gun owners to receive training.  As many as a million students a year take NRA basic level firearms classes.

The Carry Guard program, by comparison, has only offered a few, expensive, poorly advertised, 3 day courses that have limited/zero appeal to the average carry permit holder. The Carry Guard instructor team is a tiny number of former military personnel with close ties to the non-NRA for-profit ad agency.

From a pure business perspective, there is no way the Carry Guard training program generated enough revenue in the last year to pay for the level of advertising presented at the NRAAM. And without expanding the program to incorporate local and regional trainers, or even responding to submitted requests to host courses, there’s no realistic way the program will be anything more but a small scale operation competing with dozens of well established private sector programs offering cheaper, shorter courses with a known track record of student success.   They can’t sell enough t-shirts or mugs to break even.

In an era when major resources are being deployed by gun control groups, including weaponizing the media, corporations, banks and social media companies to suppress firearms related information and limit the abilities of firearms-related companies to operate, misuse of NRA funds for this failed program needs to stop. The resources should be diverted to the Training and Education program to improve or expand programs actually reaching large numbers of students, particularly new shooters that we need to grow the ranks of pro-gun voters, or given to NRA-ILA to support political action.

THURSDAY Pt 2

Thursday night I had the opportunity to dine with Michael Bane, producer of many shows for the Outdoor Channel, and other Down Range/Outdoor Channel folks.

I brought my old copy of John Shaw’s book “You Can’t Miss”, which Michael co-wrote, to Dallas, and managed to leave it in the car, failing in my quest to get it signed.

Ended the evening staying with Caleb and Lisa Causey at Lone Star Medics World HQ.

FRIDAY

I got there early Friday, anticipating bad traffic and difficulty parking, both of which occurred but not to the degree I expected.

I was able to spend the morning strolling the vendor floor with four longtime friends.  Two of them attended the Pence/Trump talk Friday afternoon.  I had to get back to College Station for a music gig and could not stick around after lunch.

My first purchase of the morning was a TUFF products iStow backpack – a clever product that’s a full size backpack that folds up into a small package about the size of a hardback book.  It was useful for wearing while browsing the floor but will also come in handy in my luggage for future trips.

Highlight of the morning was getting a copy of Bill Wilson’s “Gun Guy” book autographed by Bill.  His contributions to practical shooting and concealed carry, over the past 30+ years, has been significant. The book was co-written by Michael Bane, so now I have two books on my stack to get signed by Michael next time I see him.

Another product that caught my eye was the new RAPID car gun safe from Hornady.

This could be a useful product for those that can’t carry at work and need a secure place to put their gun inside the car.

The last thing I purchased was a discounted (show special) copy of LASR software. It uses a laptop and any laser-equipped pistol (like a SIRT pistol) to support many different kinds of dry fire practice.  I’ve been working on improving the dry fire/classroom materials we use in classes, and I’ll be setting up a dedicated laptop/webcam with the LASR software.

MEET AND GREETS

If you wanted to meet a pro competition shooter, industry legend, or social media celebrity, they were all at NRAAM.  Many vendors had meet and greet events at their booths with their sponsored stars.  I ended up with a signed “Pigman” hat by being at the Hornady booth at the right place and right time. I wasn’t familiar with his program, but getting the hat did motivate me to look him up.

SUMMARY

The 2019 NRA Annual Meeting will be in Indianapolis. If you live close to that area, or just have time and funds to go, I encourage you to attend. The annual meeting is one of the best things NRA does all year.

Team KR Training is back from the 2018 A Girl and a Gun National Conference, held at Reveille Peak Ranch in Burnet, Texas, April 2018.

350 A Girl & A Gun Members
65 Brilliant Instructors
40 Generous On-Site Vendors
16 Dedicated Staff Members
12 Hard-Working Range Donkeys
67 Event Sponsors
35 Simultaneous Training Sessions
185,000 Rounds of Ammunition
210 Rolls of Toilet Paper
1 Incredible Sisterhood

Three KR Training instructors, assisted by Tiffany Johnson from Tom Givens’ Rangemaster school, presented 12 sessions at this year’s conference:

Wednesday: NRA Range Safety Officer (Karl Rehn), “Should I Stay or Should I Go – Preparedness” (John Kochan)

Thursday: I performed an hour of pre-banquet music (solo piano and vocals) for about 400 people.

Friday: Skill Builder (Karl and John, 2 sessions), Handgun Skills and Drills (Tracy and Tiffany), 2 sessions)

Saturday: Correcting Common Shooting Errors (Karl and John), Historical Handgun (Karl and John), Everyday Carry Guns (Tracy and Tiffany, 2 sessions)

Sunday: Pushing to the Next Level (Karl and John), Precision Pistol (Tracy and Tiffany)

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Teaching NRA Range Safety Officer certification class today at the national A Girl and a Gun conference.

A post shared by KR Training (@krtraining) on Apr 18, 2018 at 10:49am PDT

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Teaching Skill Builder at the national A Girl and a Gun conference.

A post shared by KR Training (@krtraining) on Apr 21, 2018 at 10:14am PDT

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Pics from Historical Handgun class for A Girl and a Gun conference today.

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Pics and video from “Pushing to the next level” class on final day of national A Girl and a Gun conference. Every student on the line that morning was able to hit the 9/10/x-ring of an NRA B-8 target, starting from ready, at 3 yards, at or under our 1.0 sec par time.

A post shared by KR Training (@krtraining) on Apr 23, 2018 at 11:16am PDT

DOING IT RIGHT

I’ve been a presenter at the conference every year since year 2 (this was the 6th year).  Everything about this year’s conference was professional grade.  A short list of things they do very well, that deserve recognition:

1) For the 3 days of the main conference, there were 35 different training events running in parallel, involving dozens of instructors teaching a very wide range of students.  The scope of that effort is equal or greater than a major match like a USPSA or IDPA National championship, particularly since many conference attendees have never attended anything beyond a local chapter event before.  The event organizers and range support staff do an incredible job with logistics and support for all the activities.

2) On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday prior to the main conference, AG&G provided continuing education and development for their local chapter facilitators, who serve both as club leaders and trainers at the local level.  The level of shooting skill expected from those facilitators is higher than what is required for NRA basic pistol or our state level “license to carry” instructor program.  In a perfect world, the NRA would offer regional annual instructor continuing education similar to what AG&G offers for their facilitators.  It’s a significant level of commitment for the facilitators to invest 6-7 days each year for both the facilitator training and the main conference.

3) AG&G sorts participants into different “tracks” based on their experience and ability.  Early attempts to have participants self-sort encountered the same problems that exists everywhere in the firearms training industry: the tendency of people to over-rate their abilities and enroll in courses that require skills beyond their actual capabilities.  In recent years they created a check in “gear check” process with a clearly defined set of performance standards that participants have to demonstrate, to earn their track.

This process solved a lot of problems trainers presenting at previous conferences had with mismatches between student equipment and skills and course curriculum.  This year was the first time that every course I taught was attended by students with the correct background and gear for the session. Previous years always had 1-2 that were not ready for the higher level courses.

John Daub and I have written extensively on minimum standards and methods each shooter can use for individual assessment (and goal setting).  AG&G has done an excellent job of creating a structure for their members that describes a clear path to developing handgun skill.

4) Equipment selection can be a challenge, particularly holster selection for ladies.  AG&G required all ladies attending to have an outside the waistband holster, regardless of level.  Additionally, they had requirements for holsters similar to what we use in our classes, so most ladies showed up with good quality kydex holsters, instead of cheap nylon, or “gimmick” holsters that are appealing for concealed carry but are problematic when used on a firing line during a group class.  This year the only gear problems we had in any session were guns that were too big for the shooter’s hand. That’s a significant reduction in gear challenges that occurred in earlier years.

5) Overall level of shooting skill and consistency in prior training.  Over the past 5 years, I’ve seen the overall level of shooting skill, even at the lowest track, move up.  Similarly, the level of safe gun handling and understand of proper range etiquette (how to use a safe table and handle guns in a training environment around others) has significantly increased.  I’ve also observed that the information being given to local chapter members by facilitators is much more consistent than it was in the early years.

All of those things are happening because the national organization has put a lot of effort into developing their local facilitators, and the local facilitators are doing an excellent job of passing good information down to local chapter members.

The end result of this is that the majority of women I trained at this year’s conference had better gun handling, better technique and were shooting better than the vast majority of shooters that only have their state carry permit who attend my Defensive Pistol Essentials or Defensive Pistol Skills 1 course.

Everyone associated with the AG&G organization deserves recognition and attention for that significant accomplishment.   AG&G’s created its own new shooter course, that facilitators were trained to teach during this year’s conference, and I expect that will be yet another step forward for the excellent work being done, particularly by the local facilitators.

We built the KR Training A-Zone Range back in 2001, with grand opening on 02/02/02.  Pics and info from the grand opening event are still saved on the archive.krtraining.com site.

After 16 years of regular use on the range, we had the lead from the berms extracted, and the berm faces rebuilt.

We pulled more than 10,000 lbs of lead out of the berms.  A few years ago, a group of reloaders extracted about 1500 lbs using shovels and manual labor.  At 7000 grains per pound, that’s over 80 million grains of lead, over 650,000 rounds fired over the past 16 years.  That’s not counting the rounds fired on steel targets that fragmented, or the rounds fired into side berms and in the shoothouse bay that we didn’t extract.

After the lead extraction was complete, we added some erosion control barriers (railroad ties) to keep the berm dirt from sliding back down.

Today’s top story is the national school “walkout” and protests by high school kids, in response to the Parkland, Florida mass shooting.  They are calling for more restrictive gun laws.

In 1980, I was 15 years old.  I lived in Austin, Texas, and I lived, ate and breathed music.  Rolling Stone magazine and the local Austin Chronicle paper were my primary sources of information. All my opinions about what was hip and cool and what “correct thinking” was came from those sources and the musicians those publications glamorized.

I had no strong opinions about guns. My father had passed away when I was young, his guns were in a closet (unsecured) in our house.  I had been shooting once, with my sister’s boyfriend, when I was 12. We shot .22’s and muzzleloading rifles.  I was more interested in electric guitars than guns at that point in life.

In December 1980, John Lennon was killed.   The impact of that incident on the rock world and the remnants of the 1960’s counter-culture was significant.  Jann Wenner, the owner of Rolling Stone magazine, went all-in supporting an organization called Handgun Control.    Rolling Stone subscribers received letters from HCI, playing on our emotional reaction to Lennon’s death, encouraging us to join and support their efforts to pass all kinds of gun laws.  Banning “Saturday Night Specials” (a.k.a. practical carry guns) were one of their primary goals at that time. I joined.

Having no significant firsthand knowledge with guns and no close interaction with anyone that was a regular shooter, hunter or other armed citizen, and being in habit of taking my opinions and cues from left-leaning pop culture figures, I believed all the material they sent and bought into the anti-gun talking points.

Just like the high school kids all marching today, I was mostly uninformed, reacting emotionally to a tragic event, with no relevant life experience, heavily influenced by the left-leaning opinions of cultural icons and institutions I considered hip and cool.   I didn’t know enough about firearms, nevermind the Constitution or data on gun ownership and crime statistics, to do more than spout slogans.  Like most the kids marching today, I had the completely naive belief that if particular kinds of scary guns were banned and somehow magically removed from the country, that the particular violent event that caused my reaction would not have happened, and many other violent events would be prevented.

Over the next decade, I would gain a lot of life experience, performing music in bars, including being mugged in an alley after a gig, and being challenged to “go learn something about guns before spouting off” by pro-gun co-workers, actually learning about guns, buying my own guns, taking possession of my father’s guns and becoming a competent shooter.  By the time I was 25 my opinions on gun control had completely changed.

In 10 years, it’s very likely that the opinions of some of those marching today will have changed too.

Having been that uninformed and emotional once myself, I know firsthand how deep their ignorance is, and wrong their opinions are, no matter how earnest and well meaning their feelings are today.  They are right to care about reducing violence, but they are wrong to think that a few more administrative gun laws or random bans on particular gun models or magazine sizes are going to stop any mass killer.  It’s not enough to care. Policy decisions need to be based on facts, and be likely to produce useful results.  Gun control policies, for the most part, fail both criteria, no matter how much they appeal to those ignorant about firearms, tactics, and crime.

My opinion on gun control and gun laws aren’t going to be swayed by the emotional reactions of uninformed high school kids, heavily influenced by left-leaning pop culture figures and politicians.

Yours shouldn’t be either.