As many here may know, my wife, (a dyed in the wool liberal type Dem, God Bess her), who is also beating AML, (we just had a great visit with her oncologist and her prognosis is great), has always given me grief about my modest gun collection, and jumping my ass every time she finds out that I've bought another one. Several years ago, when her work took her to WY, and she was pretty much living on her own there, I'd insisted that she learn to shoot and gave her my Ruger Security 6 .357 mag for a home defence gun.
Every time I took her out to shoot, she cringed with every shot and would nearly end up in tears when I put up a man shaped sillouett target. But, she finally got past it and is now a pretty respectable shooter, even though she doesn't really enjoy shooting that much.
Last week, though, she nearly brought a tear to my eye when she asked me what I thought about possibly helping her to get her own Concealed Carry Weapons Permit, (CCW). I was both exstatic and proud at the same moment, and immeadiately my noodle starting cranking on what all would be needed to get the ball rolling on this.
She wants to go for her CCW because she'll soon be living and working back in WY again, but she'll need to be making regular trips down here to Denver to meet with her oncologist for several years to come. Most of these trips she'll be making solo, and would just feel safer with some additional hardware.
We took a trip down to our local Gander Mountain store and started looking at some small frame revolvers, (she really doesn't like autos and prefers the simplisity of a DA/SA wheelgun). I found a Ruger LCR and a S&W 637 Airweight, (a J frame with shrouded hammer), for $449 each. The Smith has a harder trigger and weighs about 1.5 oz more, but I like that it can go either DA or SA, and I can do any internal maintenance if it should ever be required. The Ruger, on the otherhand, is DAO but has a lighter and smoother trigger, but it's a composite of polymer and aluminum and uses special fasteners to join the 2 halves. Without a special tool, I can't get into the guts of it for maintenance. Not wild about that, but the bottom line is that she'll have a gun that works for her.
Being a retired CATM Instructor, I was hoping that I'd be able to conduct her training for the CCW, but I just heard back from the Sheriffs office that I either have to be NRA or POST certified. As I'm retired from the AF, they don't see my CATM certification as being current. I've looked at the NRA certs, and it would cost me between $300 to $400 for each cert I want and take nearly a year and about $2500 to get the ones I feel I'd need. I have a request into the NRA now to see if they'll accept my Military Credentials to carry over to any of their certifications. If they do, then I'm good, if not, I'll just have to pay for Jo to take a class with one of their instructors, to get a cert for her CCW, then teach her what she really needs to know my self.
Wish us luck.
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