NRA Basic Pistol Lesson 1

Welcome to the basics of pistol shooting at a Great Start Shooting School. First, we're going to cover some administrative items.

Policy regarding ammunition in the classroom: there is none.

Security of firearms: all the firearms that we have here in the classroom are real.

Some of them are not, but we ask that you don't touch your firearms until you're instructed to do so. Restrooms and drinking fountains: are the bottles of water you have in front of you, as the restroom is up in the house. Telephones and emergency exits.

At this point in time, I would like you to silence your phones, unless of course there's something that is urgent that you would need to leave the class for.

Policy regarding refreshments and snacks. You are welcome to eat anything you have as we are going along. I do not have anything for you. As far as policy regarding smoking, there is no smoking here at a Great Start Shooting School. Schedule for breaks and lunch.

We will go until your eyes start to gloss over because this is such a crazy amount of information.

If you need a bathroom break, by all means, please just raise your hand and say you need to go because chances are someone else did as well and everyone is looking for that break. We will have breaks throughout the event.

Air conditioning and heating.

I will do what I can.

The temperature in this shed goes really hot and really cold sometimes, so I always have suggested layers when you come to a Great Start Shooting School.

Policy regarding cell phones and pagers— that also goes with the telephones. Sorry, I forgot about that.

So no live ammunition in the classroom.

Please understand, in this classroom there is no live ammunition. All of the ammunition that we have, or anything that looks like ammunition, is what we call dummy ammunition or snap caps. There are no chemicals or anything that will make it go bang.

Our course goal: to teach the basic knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary for owning and using a pistol. Please understand, this class is a basic class. This is not going to turn you into Annie Oakley. The NRA is looking to give you the basic information on how to handle a firearm safely. I know when I came into this class, I thought I was going to leave la femme Nikita and know everything I needed to know about carrying a firearm simply for the fact that this is the class that Connecticut requires when we are talking about how to, to apply for our concealed carry class.

So I assumed it was a concealed carry class.

It is not. This is the basic knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary for owning and using a pistol safely. And there's a typo on that.

Anyway, a gun owner's responsibility.

Americans enjoy a right that citizens of many other countries do not: the right to own firearms.

But with this right comes responsibilities.

It is the gun owner's responsibility to store, operate, and maintain his or her firearm safely.

It is the gun owner's responsibility to ensure that unauthorized or untrained individuals cannot gain access to his or her firearms.

It is the gun owner's responsibility to learn and obey all applicable laws that pertain to the purchase, possession, and use of a firearm in his or her locale. Guns are neither safe nor unsafe by themselves. When gun owners learn and practice responsible gun ownership, guns are safe.

All right, so let's unpack a whole lot of that.

It is the gun owner's responsibility to ensure that unauthorized or untrained individuals cannot gain access to his or her firearms.

In 2019, there was a law, a safe storage law, passed, and it was that all guns must be locked up at all times, very regardless of their status, if there was a minor that could have access to them.

Now, this came after a horrible tragedy.

Ethan Song went to his neighbor's house and, um, took a gun in his neighbor's bedroom, uh, loaded it, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger.

And because of that, uh, the Song family came forward and had legislation passed so that all guns would be locked up at all times, and if not, that the gun owner would then go to prison and it would be a felony.

Prior to that, you could have unloaded guns unlocked and only loaded guns had to be locked.

Now here in Connecticut, our laws are always changing.

So at the moment, this is currently 2023 and the laws may change so that all guns may be locked up regardless of whether there is a minor available in the house or not.

Do not know, this is why.

If you're going to do anything, join Connecticut Citizens' Defense League. What I would suggest is Connecticut Citizens' Defense League sends you about one email a month that says, "Hey, this is when our meeting is going to be," and it tells you what they're gonna go over during that meeting. The other emails you're gonna get are during our legislative session, which will tell you what laws are coming forward. Like the law that I just talked about, Ethan's Law. I was up there testifying on that, but it's because CCDL sends an email saying, hey, this law is happening, you want to know about it. And that is why I suggest you do that. The other place that I suggest you go to to learn more about laws and DC Project is a little bit more at the federal level. You can go to DCProject.org. If you're a lady, you can sign up and be a part of our group here in Connecticut. But if you sign up, you'll get this lovely little handout that will tell you a lot of ways to talk about guns and the proper ownership and that sort of thing.

So CCDL gives you your local laws and that sort of thing.

And then finally, in the little package that I've given you, There's also firearm and suicide prevention. As a gun owner, you should know that 2 out of every 3 firearms deaths are actually suicide. So when people talk about wanting to save lives, we need to really talk about mental health and talk about suicide prevention.

All right, Lesson 1: Pistol Knowledge and Safe Gun Handling. Learning objectives: Identify the principal parts of a pistol and types of pistol actions and demonstrate how they function.

State, explain, and apply the NRA rules for safe gun handling.

Demonstrate how to handle a pistol in a safe manner. Reasons to own a pistol: recreational shooting, competitive shooting, hunting, protection of self and family, collecting, and exercise a constitutional right. I'd like to take a minute right now to discuss with you guys, why are you here?

Are you looking to just— maybe you have a friend who goes shooting and you'd like to just do some target shooting?

Or are you like me and absolutely love the idea of getting into competitive shooting?

Are you looking to put food on your table? And in Connecticut, we do have hunting with handguns, but as you know, by having your pistol permit, Well, as you might know, by having your pistol permit, it allows you to have the ability to buy and purchase long guns and rifles, rifles and shotguns, which are also known as long guns, which are part of hunting. Protection of self and family.

There are lots of reasons that you would want to do that. Collecting. And I will warn you right now, once you buy one, they can get like potato chips where you have to have another and another.

My husband informs me that we are indeed collectors. And then of course exercise a constitutional right, because as Americans we do enjoy that right for this point in time.

Common pistol action types: we have a double-action revolver, a single-action revolver, and a semi-automatic pistol.

NRA rules for safe gun handling: always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, always keep your finger off the trigger until ready to use, to shoot.

Always keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

So let's talk about this. Your gun at the range— we're just going to talk about safe direction at the range. We want to keep our gun parallel to the ground and perpendicular to our backstop, meaning wherever the bullet's going to go, where our targets are, that is the direction that we want it to face. We do not want it facing up up or down or left or right. So safe direction at the range is always going to be parallel to the ground, directly at your target, and the backstop is what is behind the target.

Always keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. I have to switch hands so you guys can see it in the camera.

Your finger should be high on the frame and away from the trigger guard.

It should always have a home.

If I'm doing this, this is not finger off the trigger. This is, oh look, I can fit in there very nicely. So I want my finger to have a home while I am shooting. While I'm preparing to shoot, my finger should have a home. Once I go up on target and I'm on target, now my finger goes on the trigger. Before I come off my target, I'm going to put my finger back up here. Before I come back down to the low ready. Now, the other way that my finger needs to be off the trigger is when I am unloading or doing something with my thumb. Because when I want to put my thumb somewhere, remember, we do this little thing. All right, ready? Put your hand like this. Now move your, move your index finger.

Right?

When your index finger moves, the way that we're made, our thumb wants to move too, because one of the things that makes us human is the fact that we want to do this. So when our index finger is on the frame, we are pretty solid. When our thumb starts moving around the other side of the gun, our finger really wants to move. So this is why when we're doing stuff on the other side of the gun with our thumb, we want to move our finger away from this trigger area altogether. So, um, I hope that makes sense. Now, it might look like this. You might have really big fingers. They may just fit all under the trigger guard. The idea is to keep it away from the trigger area. I know some of my students will actually tuck their trigger finger in like this because, you know, where their thumb is on the other side. And keeping the gun unloaded until ready to shoot. Because you're going to the range, loading everything up, and then you are headed off and pack everything back up.

Uh-oh, why is this not going to the next one? Huh. Well, that's inconvenient. Single action and double action revolvers. Single-action revolver: the trigger performs a single action, releasing the hammer. The hammer must be manually cocked for each shot. Double-action revolver: the trigger performs two tasks, both cocking and releasing the hammer. Most double-action revolvers can also be fired in the single-action mode. Now, next thing we need to do—

oh wait, where is it?

Take out your test.

It says Appendix 5 on the top, and we are going to go to question number 13. So if you go to question number 13 on your test, it's going to ask you a question about double-action revolvers, and the answer to your test question is right here on the screen.

So double-action refers to the type of action, A, in which pulling the trigger performs two tasks: cocking and releasing the hammer.

Yes, that would be the correct answer because it matches what it says here on the slide, and B, C, and D are incorrect.

So let me show you what a single-action revolver looks like. This is a single-action revolver. This is a Colt.45.

And I inherited it from my dad.

This is the half-cocked position for a single-action revolver.

This is what allows me to turn the cylinder so that when I am loading it, I open the loading gate and I put one in and then take next and next and next.

Single-action revolvers tend to be single everything.

So what does this mean?

It means the trigger here only performs one task. It releases the hammer. Now, the hammer is currently in half-cocked.

I have to have it fully cocked, all the way back, so that the trigger, when I pull on it, it will release the hammer.

I can now pull on the trigger all day long and till the cows come home, and nothing else is going to happen because it did its one job.

It released the hammer. I must manually cock it all the way back in order for the trigger to be able to do anything, right? So next we go to double-action revolvers. Double-action revolvers, the trigger does two things. It both takes the hammer, cocks it all the way back, and then lets it fall.

So when I pull the trigger, On a double-action revolver, watch what happens to the hammer here.

It pulls it all the way back and then releases it.

So double-action revolver, the trigger does two things. And it says most double-action revolvers can also be fired in a single-action mode.

So what that means is I can cock this hammer and now I'm in single-action, because now the only thing this trigger does is is drop the hammer.

When we do the shooting portion of this class, we always have you put this in single action because the less you have to move the trigger, the easier it is to keep your sights lined up.

So for most beginners, we will put this in single action most of the time. If you're getting adventurous, we'll let you try double action, but look how much further that has to move, and that's a lot more work. So we like shooting in single action because it's easier to be more accurate. Are you kidding me?

I have no idea what just happened. Parts of a revolver: barrel, frame, and action. There's not a lot to this. However, this is another one of those test questions, so go ahead and pull out your handy-dandy test and go to question number 1. Again, the answer is sitting here on the test.

The 3 major components of a pistol are— now, to be fair, we are currently looking at a revolver, but we're gonna see a similar slide a little bit later with semi-automatic, and the main parts of a semi-automatic are also barrel, frame, and and action. And that's kind of all there is to that.

All right, so your frame is the main component of the gun that everything else is attached to.

As of currently, the ATF says the frame is also the portion that, um, has the serial number on it. The barrel is the metal tube through which the bullet goes through, and the action are all the pieces of moving parts The—

in a revolver, you've got the trigger, your cylinder moves, your hammer moves, your all sorts of stuff. So we have that. Revolver components.

Here we have our front sight, our rear sight, our trigger guard, backstrap, grip panels, and front strap.

Now, to be fair, most of us just call it the grip.

We don't usually use backstrap or front strap.

The nice thing about our grips is that on many guns you can change them out to whatever texture, size, shape, smoothness, roughness that you like. Your trigger guard is on most guns.

Your front sight, we joke about in the competition world because your front sight is the thing, bump on the front, you need to look at to hit your targets.

Your cylinder, your hammer, your hammer spur, your cylinder release latch, trigger, and ejector rod. Let's show you briefly how all of this works.

So here's our cylinder, right? This is a part of the gun that makes me remember that this is a revolver because it's round and it goes around in circles. Your cylinder release latch is this right here. It's going to get pushed towards your cylinder in order to release the cylinder. Now I've got dummy ammo in here, so it just falls out. Real ammo, however, when you want to get it out, you will have to push the ejector rod to get it out. We do what's called a rock star, which is if you go like this with your hands— whoops, sorry, everything is backwards—

these two fingers are going to come up through the frame, and your—

these two fingers are holding the cylinder open, and while your index finger and your pinky are holding onto the frame, your thumb then pushes on the ejector rod to get your empty shells out, or if there's a ceasefire, they would also get out any of your shells that are in there that are not shot yet. And I hit the wrong button.

Hold, please. Next slide. Action—

I can't show the action because that'd be really expensive because I'm not good at taking guns apart, but like I said, it's all the moving parts inside.

Okay, on to our single-action revolver. Talked briefly right here about the loading gate.

This is the thing that opens up so that we can put our cartridge in here. I have to go in half-cocked with the hammer so that I can go from one cylinder to the next to the next. The ejector rod, unlike the double-action where we open the cylinder up, the ejector rod on the single-action is attached to the barrel.

It still does the same thing.

It will still push out the next empty case or you know, like I said, if you have live ammo, it will push that out.

The cylinder does the same thing.

It goes around and around. It rotates the trigger guard and the trigger and your hammer spur. Hammer is the part that's actually hitting the firing pin, where the hammer spur is the part that you are using to cock the hammer.

Now, on a single-action revolver, you must have a hammer spur. Because without that, this just becomes a very expensive paperweight. On a double-action revolver, you will see revolvers that have no tail. They, they chop this part off. You will also see them with no hammer, and it's just all internal mechanisms.

Why? Because the double action can both cock and release, so they don't need to have all of that.

All right, so parts of a revolver barrel: rifling, lands and grooves; chamber, in cylinder with cartridge; and muzzle. Muzzle, muzzle, muzzle.

That is the thing when we're talking about our always keep the gun pointed safe direction. The muzzle is where the bullet is leaving the gun, and so that is why we always want it in a safe direction.

You're rifling.

You know, back in the day when they had those pictures of the Redcoats lining up and the Bluecoats lining up and they'd kneel and they would shoot each other but not everybody died? That was because they did not have rifling. They did not have lands and grooves. They had what are called smoothbore rifles.

And so no one knew where the stuff went. If you've ever thrown a football, That is exactly—

you have to learn how to spiral a football, right?

So if you've ever learned how to throw football, the football has to roll off the tops of your fingers so that it spins. If you do not do that, the football does not go very far, and that is what your rifling and grooves do. Oh look, it's that slide, main parts of a semi-automatic pistol.

Remember question number 1? Yes, the main parts are barrel, frame, and action. The difference is you don't see the barrel of a semi-automatic on this particular picture because it's inside the slide.

The action, all the moving parts within the gun, and the frame, once again the main component of the gun that has the serial number on it.

Parts of a semi-automatic pistol.

Look, there's more!

Slide, slide stop, safety, grip panels, backstrap, front strap, magazine release, and trigger guard. So we have another test question.

If you'd please go to test question number 16. The safety on a pistol is a mechanical device and can fail. And in my experience, I say can and will fail.

Simply for the fact that I have had my safety fail. Now, it was on by accident in the first place, but I was at a match, I drew my gun, I took a shot, and it allowed me to shoot my first shot. Once it was engaged, I could not shoot any further because it did stop my slide from moving back and forth. The slide is the piece on the top that goes back and forth on the gun. Now, As far as the slide, that's the part that goes back and forth. The slide stop is when you push the— oh wait, let me see if I can do this.

See this little notch right here? So when you push the slide back this way, your thumb is then going to take this slide stop and push it up. See that little notch right there? That little notch right there goes into that little notch right there. So that allows your gun to stay open.

You may need to do that in order to verify the gun is empty.

You might have a malfunction.

And when you're putting the gun down while you're at the range, you always want to make sure that the slide stop is engaged, the slide is open, so you can see inside the gun when it's not in your hands.

The magazine release right here, right, this is what allows your magazine to pop out.

You're generally, on most guns, you're pushing that into the grip.

Oh, look, more pieces and parts. This is what I call the fancy gun.

It has a decocker, a slide stop, a hammer, a hammer spur, a magazine, a magazine release, trigger, and takedown lever.

Notice some of these things are here more than once. So you're only going to find a decocker on a gun that has a hammer—

on a semi-automatic, sorry, that has a hammer. When it has a decocker, it's usually in the place where the slide stop normally would be, because if you remember from the previous slide, this was up here further. So that's just one thing to know: you will only have a decocker if you have a hammer. You will always have a magazine release for your magazine.

And your takedown lever. If you like guns that are easy to clean, you generally want a gun that has a takedown lever, because when you push this down, generally it's relatively easy to field strip the gun to prepare it for cleaning.

In case you missed anything: slide, the piece that on the top that goes back and forth; takedown lever, the thing that makes it easy to take the gun apart when you're getting ready to clean; Your slide stop lever. This is so that you can lock your slide open so you can see in the chamber to see that it's empty, or if you need to help clear a malfunction. Your safety, a mechanical device that can and will fail.

I always go on a rant is that your index finger and your brain are your safety.

Having good discipline, following those rules, Always keeping your gun pointed in a safe direction, always keeping your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target.

That is your true safety.

Hammer on some semi-automatics, not on all. The ones that don't have hammers are called striker fire. Hammer spur— again, it'd have to have a hammer to have a hammer spur. Your backstrap, your magazine, your front strap, your magazine release. Trigger guard, and barrel. All right, parts of a semi-automatic pistol barrel.

We have our muzzle. Once again, this is where the bullet comes out of. The rifling, which are the lands and grooves, are what give the bullet spin as it's pushed down the barrel. Uh, and chamber. This is where your bullet actually sits before it's fired. The lands and grooves—

rifling.

The spiraling lands and grooves engrave the bullet and give it spin as it travels through the bore.

This is what every CSI police thing you've ever looked at, when they're talking about the ballistics, this is the fingerprint of the gun. This is the thing that— how you can tell one gun from another is their lands and grooves are unique, just like fingerprints. Functions of a semi-automatic pistol slide: extracting the fired case from the chamber and ejecting it from the pistol, cocking the hammer or firing pin striker, feeding the top cartridge in the magazine into the chamber. I'm actually going to add in a little video of this in my next presentation, so I will work on the functions of the semi-automatic slide. To make this a little better. All right, here we go. Types of semi-automatic pistol actions. We have single action, which is the same as in a revolver.

Each pull of the trigger performs a single action, releasing the hammer. The hammer must be manually cocked for the first shot.

Helps if I hit the button.

Traditional double action The initial long heavy trigger both cocks and releases the hammer. Each subsequent shot is fired from the single-action mode.

Double-action only. This is like the white elephant of the gun world. Each pull of the trigger both cocks and releases the hammer with a double-action, like it, as with a double-action revolver.

So here's how these work.

Single action is like your Glock, your Smith Wesson, where you pull the trigger and if the slide does not move forward and back, you— nothing will happen when you pull the trigger again. Double action generally often, um, has a hammer on it, although there's plenty of single actions that have a hammer on it like the 1911s. So just how the gun looks does not tell you if it's single action or double action. It's a matter of what does the trigger do. So traditional double action, it has a long heavy trigger pull that both cocks and releases the hammer.

Once you fired the gun, the slide has gone back, kicked out that empty shell, and gone forward.

When it went back, it also cocked the hammer for you. So, and double action only, like I said, is the white elephant of the world, the gun world, in that, uh, the hammer will follow the slide forward. So each time you pull the trigger on a double action only semi-automatic, the hammer is pushed back but then follows the slide forward. So it goes back to that long trigger, longer trigger pull. All right, so we talked about safe trigger position, but I will just reiterate how important this is. When you are on the firearm getting ready to shoot, your sights go up on target, and then your finger goes on the trigger. You do your shooting. When you are done, your finger goes back on the frame before you come off the target. If you're up here and you start coming down, I will push your hands back up so that you get the correct muscle memory of making sure you take your finger off the trigger while your sights are still on the target before you come back down. All right, double action, single action, and double action revolver—

whoa—

double action revolver, single action revolver, and semi-automatic pistol. We're gonna do a demo.

Hold on.

All right, so single action, double action. What are we doing? We're gonna do the loading, cocking, uncocking, and unloading. Explain and demonstrate the following procedures. Yes, we will, in another video.

All right, ignorance.

Causes of firearm accidents: ignorance, lack of knowledge, ignorance of the rules for safe gun handling, ignorance of the proper and safe way to operate a pistol. Carelessness: poor or improper attitude, failure to apply the rules for safe gun handling, failure to observe proper procedures for safely operating a pistol. So ignorance, that is where I started. I did not know anything about firearms. I knew not to touch them. That was about it. My dad had them in the house. My brother and I knew, don't do anything with them. Once in a while he would bring us to the range, put a loaded gun in our hand, we would pull the trigger. And that was the extent of my firearms knowledge. I actually got my first black eye from a rifle scope because they were shooting a target off the back porch of our house up in New Hampshire. And they thought it'd be funny to hand the kid the rifle and not tell her that the, the scope is not supposed to be next to your eye when you pull the trigger. That would be high ignorance. Now, carelessness, the poor or improper attitude, would be more likely why I would currently have an accident. If I failed to apply the rules for safe gun handling, um, and if I failed to observe proper procedures for safely operating a pistol, I would have an accident.

Think about the last time that you went and got automobile insurance.

What is the first question they ask?

How far do you drive every day back and forth to work? If you only go a mile every day, your insurance is super inexpensive.

If you drive an hour or more every day, your insurance gets more expensive. Why? Because the more you do something the more likely you are to have an accident. So once we get you out of ignorance and we teach you and you follow the safe rules for gun handling— always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, always keep your finger off the trigger, and always keep your gun unloaded till ready to use. Oh, and part of that we're going to talk about a little bit, but this is a gun safety course, not a self-defense course. Because most people ask that question at some point.

Why would I keep it unloaded if it's for self-defense? I'm like, that is a different course.

That is not this course.

We are just teaching the basics of safe gun handling. So once we've gotten comfortable with our safety rules and our handling skills, carelessness would be the next thing we need to be aware of to avoid firearms accidents.

So we just talked about that. Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction— parallel to the ground, perpendicular to backstop. Always keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. We showed you examples of that already as well.

And always keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

Now, one of the things I forgot to say the first time—

and this slide is in here, by the way, like 6 times— the gun pointed in a safe direction can change based on your location. But for the purposes of this class, we are going to assume that we're going to work on our gun skills at the range.

Once we start going and expanding our skills beyond the range, then there are additional safe directions called dynamic safe directions that we need to talk about. For, but for the purposes of today, we're just going to do safe direction at the range.

All right, this is your turn. Safe pistol handling practical exercise.

We're going to allow you to learn how to load and unload and cock and decock your firearms successfully.

Lesson 1 summary: As a result of your participation in this lesson, you are now able to State the course goal and any special requirements for the lessons.

Identify the principal parts of a pistol and the types of pistol actions and demonstrate how they function. State, explain, and apply the NRA rules for safe gun handling.

Demonstrate how to handle a pistol in a safe manner. What are your questions?

Feel free to email me because this is pre-recorded, so obviously you can't ask me questions right now.