Concealed Carry with Andy — Happy Travel Cone

The student becomes the teacher and the teacher becomes the student.

Professor Jose and I had the pleasure of doing a Concealed Carry course: New Mexico Concealed Carry Course through Practical Defense Training, LLC . this weekend with our War Room School of Jiu Jitsu student, Andy Montoya.

Only this time, he was the teacher and a darn great one at that.

I’ll be honest: I’m relatively new to the gun scene. I got my Sig Sauer P365 last year for Valentine’s Day and have shot it a handful of times with an admittedly neutral attitude. I went along with all of it because I know it’s a good skill to have and I want to share in my partner’s passions.

Buying my first gun from our student Gabe

When it comes to talking about guns in this country, I feel like it is an adversarial conversation with very strong opinions on either side. I’m a Filipino American who comes from Delaware, a blue state where Biden comes from. My family never had guns, but weren’t opposed to it- it’s just not their area of expertise or interest. So, it was a welcome change to live with someone who is not only knowledgeable but incredibly passionate about firearms.

Jose has two great passions in life: Jiu Jitsu…and Guns. He has more pictures of guns on his phone than me and the dog combined. When we’re decompressing late at night on our computers, I occasionally glance over at him and he’s looking at gun stuff or interacting on gun forums. When we’re watching movies, he’s dry firing at random characters or cleaning a gun. What is his perfect gift for any occasion? Ammo.

Andy started training jiu jitsu with us about a month ago. I remember how excited Jose was that we were getting a firearms instructor to come to the school and the possibility of trading skills with a like-minded individual.

Concealed Carry is the practice of carrying a weapon (such as a handgun) in public in a concealed manner, either on one's person or in close proximity.

Grand Master Jedi, Andy Montoya teaching us his ways

The Class:

It was 15 hours over two days and we filled in every minute of that time, including working through lunch. The class itself was…not what I expected. I thought we’d be learning how to properly shoot a gun as well as laws surrounding the license. We did learn those things, but it was so much more than that.

We learned a lot of SOFT SKILLS: how to communicate with people and de-escalate a situation, mental exercises for how to handle certain situations, techniques for non-violent dispute resolutions, exploring different options…pretty much everything you can and should do before shooting someone. Deadly force should be a last resort.

I see a lot of parallels to what we learn in jiu-jitsu. Ultimately, we want to defend ourselves. That’s why we learn martial arts. One of the first concepts I ever learned in BJJ is Distance Management. Similar to situations where a gun is involved…if you can walk away from a fight, WALK AWAY.

Justified:

We explored the emotional and mental aftermath of shooting someone. Even if it was justified. Speaking of “Justified”: We did an exercised with Jeremy where we watched what looked like a “justified” shooting. A man was pulling into a parking space. Another man parked his car perpendicular right behind him, comes out with what looks like a long pipe and starts aggressively hitting the guy’s windows and windshield. The man who is being attacked takes a gun from the car and shoots multiple times at the guy attacking him.

Seems like straightforward self-defense.

But then, what if the jury were given these jury instructions: “For it to be considered self-defense, the man shooting acted based on fear and fear alone.” We then watched the video again and saw the man shooting made a shot which looked like it was in anger.

The purpose of this exercise was to show how critical the grey area can be and how easily a jury can be swayed. Do you want to be in a position where you must prove you were justified in using deadly force against a person and then have 12 strangers decide whether you go to prison or walk free?

When you consider taking out your gun in a situation, you need to consider two things: Understand what you are willing to die for. Are you willing to go to jail to save it?

Shooting:

This is arguably the “fun part” of class- though Andy, Jeremy and Scott kept us thoroughly engaged the entire two days 😊

On the morning of Day 2, we meet at the range and are divided into two groups. We chose ahead of time what caliber we wanted to shoot and which gun we wanted to use. There is a sheet of paper about the size of a human chest. We would be shooting from 3 yards and then 7 yards.

Circle 1 is trying to get shots into the circle. Box 2 is trying to get tightest grouping. Box 3 is 5 shots in close succession- like trying to get out 5 shots in under a second. Bottom is same thing but from 7 yards away.

[Sidebar: I went shooting with Jose a few days before to test out a 45 and a 9mm. My Sig is a 9mm AND has a really nice red dot optic that Jose got me for my birthday. The optic the gun initially came with was terrible and we had a tough time sighting it in and it was always “off” the mark. The new one is like a bright red cherry and I had a tight good grouping when practicing with it.

My grouping during practice with my 9mm from 5 yards

However, I decided to shoot my qualifying with 45 because: If I qualify with 45, I am able to carry every caliber below that, i.e 9mm. I don’t plan on carrying anything more than 9, but it’s good to know I have that option to do so if I want to. Plus, I asked Andy if I could try with the 45, but revert to 9 if I sucked at it and he said yes.

The 45 I used was a 1911 Springfield Professional Operator. This beauty had a hair trigger and not too much recoil. I could handle it. ]

When it comes time to shoot, every student gets one-on-one attention. Andy is next to me the whole time. He tells me which target to aim at and how many to shoot. He changes my grip and help me relax. I am super analytical and find myself overthinking my shots, anticipating the recoil and nervously shaking in my grip.

One thing he says to me that I’ll never forget: “This is just another martial art.”

I think about how I approach rolling: I am calm, I breathe, I am in my element. I do this every day and I am good. I know what I am doing. This isn’t hard. Don’t think, just do.

I shoot a TIGHT grouping in rapid succession on box number 3. HECK YES! Andy smiles and gives me a high five.

Oh gosh, that felt so good!

I was so psyched after this experience that I bought 1000 rounds of ammo when we got home.

Gun People

It’s funny, if I had to picture the “type” of people who are into guns, I’d picture some slightly overweight, white dude redneck wearing camos and a MAGA hat with an AR in each hand. But we had all walks of life during class, different races and ages and I’d say it was about 60/40 split male/female. One lady I made friends with, her name is Vera from Ukraine and she was taking the course with her husband.

Andy giving one-on-one coaching to Vera, as he did to everyone.

I can see it now, why people are enthusiastic about guns.

It’s fun. It is our Second Amendment RIGHT to arm ourselves against tyranny. It is our duty to protect ourselves and the ones we love.

With great power comes great responsibility. With that comes the need for awareness, temperance and SAFETY.

Andy, Jeremy and Scott are incredibly PASSIONATE about what they teach and how they teach it. They all touted safe practices multiple times, such as keeping your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot and NEVER point a gun in the direction of anything or anyone you are not trying to kill. They taught us many more things in the class such as the logistics of travelling with a gun, insurance, safe storage, nuances of different laws, “weapons” on a plane, NRA competitions and how to clean a gun.

I highly recommend taking this course: New Mexico Concealed Carry Course through Practical Defense Training, LLC . Ask for Andy Montoya: https://www.abqconcealedcarry.com/

Also, look into insurance with Second Call Defense. Andy highly recommends, purely because they are great and run by a person with integrity. None of us get anything for recommending them: https://secondcalldefense.org/

People fear what they don’t understand.

Learn everything you can, especially about the things that scare you, and you’ll be better for it 😊

Self-Defense in all forms!