TexasCHLforum.com

For the time being, I'll take this with a big grain of unrefined sea salt.

There is nothing on the NRA Instructors' website corroborating this, and likewise no email communications from them. And I don't take a statement that "we made a mistake" to mean that they're abandoning the blended online training concept. They may simply intend to revise the content or delivery.

We'll see.

To be clear, I am not a fan of the NRA's change to an online hybrid training concept for Basic Pistol. I'm no Luddite here: I've actually developed online training and testing curricula, and support same for many purposes.

Basic Pistol ain't one of those purposes. I'd be more inclined to support blended online training for Personal Protection in the Home and Outside the Home.

Most everything's on a bell curve: there are some remarkable NRA instructors, the majority are adequate, and there are some who probably shouldn't be teaching at all. I get why NRA would want tighter standardization of curriculum to help ensure that the less-than-adequate stratum of instructors cannot fail to teach the precepts correctly. But that's engineering to teach to the lowest common denominator; designing for mediocrity...if not failure.

In my experience, the interplay, questions, and hands-on interaction in the NRA Basic Pistol classroom is worth more than any online training.

These are people who may never have fired a gun before. They've taken a big step toward a willingness to learn about firearms. We can't fail them. They are our future in support of the Second Amendment.

Guns aren't like your corporate mandatory HR course; not like your defensive driving test after you've been given a ticket.

For someone who has basic skills already developed, online training can work. But to think for someone who may have never fired a handgun before that online training would be the way to go before ever receiving any in-person instruction?

I am the NRA; but this was/is a big mistake.