AAR - NRA LE HANDGUN INSTRUCTOR

Overview – I attended the NRA’s Law Enforcement Handgun instructor course from 23 – 27 September, 2024 in Round Rock, TX.  The class was taught by staff instructors from the NRA’s LE division (both retired CA LEOs) and attended by members of local LE from TX, private security personnel from five or six states, and some feds from the Department of Commerce.  The Round Rock Police Dept acted as the host and their firearms instructor staff kept everything on track.

VENUE – The Round Rock Police Department has a very nice training facility.  We were using an indoor 50yd range that had about 25 lanes.

GEAR – I wore my standard belt kit for most of the class.  For the CCW portion I used my JM custom Kydex AIWB.  Everything worked as expected.

GUNS – I shot my G45 with ACRO for most of the class.  I used my G19 with RMR for the CCW/Off-duty carry portion.  No weapons or optic issues during the class.

 POI –

The class was taught over five days of mixed classroom and range work.  Like a lot of instructor level classes, considerable time was spent covering the basics.  This is done to help put the class on the same page and ensure that the instructors can hold students accountable for the information (you can’t hold someone accountable for information that you can’t verify they were given).  It’s still a drag and something I have to mentally prep for every time I take an instructor class. 

Day 1 – Safety, fundamentals of marksmanship, handling techniques, coaching techniques.

Day 2 – Review of day 1, Prep and construction of lesson plans, NRA programs, Use of cover

Day 3 – Review of day 2, Methods of instruction, Low light training

Day 4 – Review of day 3, Legal framework, CCW/Off-duty considerations  

Day 5 – Review of day 4, Developing practical range training, written exam

In addition to the topics above, we shot a skills assessment on day 3 (about as challenging as most LE quals).

We were also squadded up on Day 2 and tasked with putting together a course of fire for the class to shoot.  We had to write out the lesson plan, present the CoF to the class, and run the range safely.  These CoFs were presented and shot on Days 4 and 5.

LESSONS LEARNED – 

 I attended this class for credentialing.  There are some other training opportunities that I wanted to attend that required a nationally recognized MIL/LE firearms instructor certification and this fit the bill. 

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised, both by the quality of the instruction and the quality of the material. 

Between the two instructors, I believe they had something like 70 years of experience teaching firearms.  There are a lot of lessons to be learned from people like that who take the job seriously.  As the saying goes, you won’t live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself, so learn from the mistakes of others.  Aside from getting a little long winded at times, the instruction was solid.

The material was also more forward leaning than I expected from the NRA.  When I took the basic pistol instructor class back in 2009 or so, I felt like I was dragged back to the gun world of the mid-90s.  This class also had some anachronisms (Marines - Anachronism), particularly around the low light techniques being taught.  All of the adult learning and blocks of instruction about presenting information were spot on. 

My biggest take away from the class was that I am incredibly spoiled by the quality of the guys that I usually run on the range.  There were a few people in the class that I wouldn’t trust to *perform* the skills safely, much less teach them.  Working with a population that understands and takes seriously the idea that safety is foundational to everything we do with a gun in hand is something I shouldn’t take for granted.

I also enjoyed the courses of fire presented by the student groups.  My favorite was kind of a mix of Range Master’s Casino Drill and VTAC’s 1-5.  The group set up two, 6-target arrays with the targets numbered 1-6.  shooters loaded three magazines with seven live rounds and one dummy round (randomly).  One shooter centered up on each array (I think at 7yds) and someone in between the shooters rolled out a big squishy die.  Whatever number the die landed on was the target the shooters started on.  From that target, you fired the number of rounds that corresponded to the target number and shot all six targets in the array.  So we fired 21rds, cleared three malfunctions, reloaded twice, counted, and had the pressure of competing against another guy in the class.  Super fun and a good use of resources.              

OVERALL –  

For a handgun instructor class, this wasn’t bad.  The men teaching weren’t there to show everyone how much they knew.  The material was pretty good.  Most of the students in the class arrived with a solid level of skill.  My biggest complaint was the amount of down time we had on the range.  In my opinion, if you’re not shooting, you should be loading magazines or getting the next block of instruction (or both) we spent *a lot* of time hanging out waiting for the next thing.  Overall, though, If you’re looking for a handgun instructor cert, you could do a lot worse.

P.S. Don’t go to Round Rock, TX and start a ruckus.  Those cops down there can shoot.