Training course
Deep in the quiet woods near the Armstrong-Butler county line, and nestled off the road, sits a quiet low-roofed building with many doors.
Take one door and you are in a foyer of sorts. Take another, however, and you find yourself in an indoor firing range.
There, on a recent cold Saturday morning, a beginner's class in owning a pistol is underway at the North Buffalo Sportsman's Club, Armstrong County.
Two couples are here to learn the basics of what it means to own a pistol. They sit at long tables with their firearms, all semi-automatics, in front of them, with loaded magazines beside the pistols.
The instructor, Michael Dunlap, begins by checking to be sure everyone's firearm is empty, ensuring there are no bullets in the chamber as he points the empty pistols away from his students. Once that's accomplished, he goes over the anatomy of a pistol, both the semi-automatic and revolver types.
Dunlap is owner of Trigger Mike's Firearms, one of many companies in Butler County that provides firearm training. He is also a Pennsylvania State Police officer. His aim in the class is clear. He wants students to know their firearms and to be safe about using them.“The big thing here is I want you to be safe coming out (of this class), and I want you to feel confident and comfortable with firearms so you can move on and continue practicing on your own at home or the range,” Dunlap said.To that end, he goes over the rules of his class. One of them is no live ammunition until he says so, and maybe not even in this class, depending on how quickly the class catches on and how serious he perceives them to be. He wants no accidents.“If it's that unsafe, a lot of times I have packed up my stuff and left,” Dunlap said. “There's no sense in being on the range where somebody's just being ignorant or careless, and the next thing you know, the ambulance is coming.”Pennsylvania is a firearm-carrying state, with about a quarter of the state's residents owning registered firearms, according to worldpopulationreview.com. U.S. citizens have a constitutional right to own and carry firearms, but with ownership comes responsibility.“I've always said that every law-abiding citizen who chooses to carry a gun should, but — in big B-U-T letters — they should know the laws behind the force they might have to use,” said Butler County Sheriff Mike Slupe.Slupe said that it has been very rare in Butler County that an individual has come into a business to rob it of cash or merchandise.In 2013, Moses Jewelers in Seven Fields was robbed at gunpoint; no one was injured. In 2007, an employee was shot in the abdomen during a robbery at Drive-Thru Beverages in Butler Township.
“We should all feel safe in our workplaces,” Slupe said. “Now, I'm not against a business owner having a gun on their person, and let me qualify that by saying it's not hidden in a drawer somewhere. That would be irresponsible.”He strongly advocates education for gun owners and the Sheriff's Office offers classes.“They need to know how to operate their firearm,” he said. “They need to be proficient. And they need to learn to clean their guns. So it's not just about point and shoot. It's about everything else that comes before and after.”Back at the pistol class, Dunlap wants to be sure his students know how to properly load their firearm, so he asks each student to empty their magazines, and he passes out dummy bullets with plastic orange tips.“We have to be held to a higher standard,” he said. “Owning a firearm doesn't stop with just purchasing it and taking it home.”When he teaches firearm safety, he asks his students to consider the ramifications of pressing the trigger of a loaded weapon aimed at a perpetrator. It's often more than a firearm owner bargained for.
“This is a tool that can be used to end somebody's life,” Dunlap said. “You have to be aware of that, so you need to be accountable for everything that we do and our actions with that.”Dunlap said gun owners must acknowledge the repercussions of using their gun, even in self-defense,“I hope that it saves your life or the life of your loved one, (because) it's not going to end there,” he said. “You ended somebody's life; you are going to have to live with that.”Student Stephanie Alexander, 44, said she is taking the class so she can be better prepared to protect herself and her family.She says she's thought about the possibility of shooting another person.“If I feel that my life or my family's is in danger, yes,” Alexander said.Still, Ed Bella, owner of Personal Safety Solutions who also teaches firearm safety classes, said owning a firearm is one way to be responsible for our personal safety.“You are your own first responder for your family's safety,” Bella said. “I tell my students, a lot of them live out in rural areas where police coverage is at minimum 10 to 15 minutes away, if you're lucky. Think about that and say, yes, I am serious about wanting to be safe and understanding that responsibility.”
“That's the first step,” Bella said. “You have to be willing to say, 'I am willing to take responsibility for my own safety.'”Besides covering the anatomy of a pistol, Dunlap uses a simple exercise to help his students find their dominant eye and the dominant side of their body, which usually has to do with being right- or left-handed. Then he has them practice proper stance for shooting.Finally, it's time to go to the range, but still there is no shooting. Dunlap has to make certain everyone is standing properly with their unloaded firearm and will be able to safely discharge it.Not to worry. There are still another two hours to go in the class.“I think it's a great course and, honestly, in my opinion, anyone that wants to be a responsible gun owner should take the course,” Alexander said. “I think everyone should take it.”
