Firearms Skills

Historically, projectile weapons have dominated warfare, law enforcement, personal defense, and hunting. This is because projectiles launched or fired accurately from a distance provide the best risk/reward ratio, and therefore the most effective use of force for engaged personnel. During the past three hundred years, firearms have replaced the spear, the sling, the bow and the catapult, as weapons of choice for both military and civilian use.

​

In 1791 the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified by Congress. Since that time, the United States has been unique in the history of the world in making "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" an essential rock in the foundation of its philosophic, moral and legal structure. The martial art of the American Republic was thus mandated by Congress to enable every individual American citizen to shoulder the responsibilities of self defense, thus contributing to local and national security without recourse to the potentially tyrannical power of a standing army.

​

Nitobe Inazo spoke of the sword as the "soul of the samurai." George Washington called firearms "the American peoples' liberty teeth." Firearms in particular, make the weak equal in deadly force to the strong; the small equal to the great; the few equal to the many; the sick and crippled equal to the healthy; children and the elderly equal in defensive power to ruthless predators in their prime. Thus the individual "right of the people to keep and bear Arms" is the soul of justice.

​

Instruction at Tactical Studies includes a consideration of moral philosophy, of elements of political economy, of constitutional history, of the Second Amendment and the politics of gun control, the strategic, tactical, legal and psychological implications of firearms possession and use, and some elements of firearms design, recognition, evaluation and skills.

​

Proper skill begins and ends with safety.

​

Instruction includes the use and manipulation of the operating mechanisms of firearms, and the acquisition of defensive shooting tactics and skills. The primary objective of firearms training is to achieve an optimal integrity of safety, speed and accuracy, such that the shooter can hit properly selected targets consistently while under pressure. Tactical Studies provides instruction in the basic tactics and skills of defensive shooting when and where the U.S. Constitution is recognized by State and local law, in strict accordance with that law.

​

Only licensed personnel may train with firearms where licensing is required.

 

All shooters must be ready to submit driver's licenses or State I.D. to be checked for wants and warrants.