Washington DC First Shots Program

From yesterday’s press conference with NSSF, we have more info on the Washington, DC area First Shots program that will be launched to teach residents of DC the basics of handgun safety.

The program itself it will be held at the Izaak Walton League range on Sunday, August 24th in Centerville, VA – attendees must first register at www.nssf.org/firstshots, and attendance is only open to residents of Washington, DC.  The FirstShots seminars allow people with no prior firearms experience the opportunity to learn hands on about the essentials of handgun safety.

The program includes about 90 minutes of classroom time instruction on the basics, including the functional differences between a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver, gun safety rules, etc; and then from there transitions to range time, with the pistols and ammunition and trainers being provided by NSSF/FirstShots.

For those of you not in the DC area, but perhaps living in a state or city (coughChicagocough) that frowns on personal firearms ownership, I have good news for you as well.  NSSF President Steve Sanetti said yesterday that they plan on continuing the advertising campaign and aggressive promotion of the FirstShots program in more than just Washington, DC.

“With growing interest in handgun ownership among men and women across the country, the firearms industry understands that the best way to help ensure its products are used responsibly and safely is to start new gun owners off with a supervised and educational experience,”

Major kudos to NSSF for running this program, and for taking the initiative to announce in major newspapers in the DC Metro area.  I hope that this effort in Centerville is a huge success – and I hope to see a similar advertisement to the one that ran in the Washington Post show up in the Chicago Sun-Times sooner than later.