Responsibilities of a CCW Permitee

Changes to the Colorado Concealed Handgun Permit permitting and renewal process (Colorado House Bill 24-1174) require CHP (formerly CCW) permit-holders to complete a mandatory training class as of July 1, 2025.

Despite the fact that one of my side gigs is a firearm instructor, I am not a fan of mandatory training. Adding expensive requirements to our right to bear arms goes against everything I believe in. We (I use the term loosely) are making firearms ownership and usage too expensive for the people who really need to have the ability to protect themselves and their families. And, as GunDude Mez is a fan of saying, "pass enough laws and everyone's a criminal".

Having said that, I had an eye-opening experience recently regarding training. I co-instructed our renewal course. We've been teaching the renewal course for a few months now, but last week was the first one I'd co-instructed.

Let me tell you, I was less than impressed. These CCW permit holders have had their permits for five years, and were due for renewal. I expected, at minimum, for the renewal students to have some level of comfort with basic gun handling. What I did not expect was for eleven of the twelve students up for renewal to have zero level of comfort with their guns. 

At the beginning of class, I always make the students come up, one by one, to our designated "safe" area to unload and show clear. It serves two purposes: 1) I can personally visually and physically check their pistols and magazines, and 2) I can immediately tell their level of safety and proficiency. Most looked at me blankly when I asked them to unload and show clear, then tried to hand me their bagged or boxed guns for me to do it. 

During the few minutes I have with each of them, I ask them about what they're shooting and what their carry rig looks like. More blank looks. We had a student with a revolver in a purse with a sticky holster, and another with an Urban Carry deep concealment rig. Now, I don't mind purse carry at all. In fact, that's my carry method of choice, so I wasn't about to give her any grief. Instead, I took a few minutes before class started to explain why she needed to have her gun secured in her purse with an appropriate holster, and gave her some resources. The Urban Carry guy? I just sighed and asked if he had any other method of carry with him. He did not.

We reviewed all of the changes to the Colorado law, as required, answered some questions, then broke up into two groups to go to the range. Our shooting test requires students to draw from holster, move and shoot, clear a malfunction, shoot from cover, and perform an emergency reload. None of it is very difficult, and all are skills that might be required if someone needs to use their gun for self-defense.

The very first shot, we had a bleeder. He'd crossed his thumbs behind his slide and cut himself so deeply that I sent him to Urgent Care for stitches. While I was off the range, patching him up and dealing with gathering his things, my range partner had to excuse someone who missed the target with all five of their first shots at three yards. We didn't even make it through the first range exercise and had to send two students on their way.

Not our actual range floor, but close enough.

Now, I told you all of that to tell you this:

If you are going to carry a gun for self-protection, you MUST be competent with the gun. I don't know how many times I have to tell students that guns are not a magic talisman. You cannot become competent with your gun in one eight-hour required course. You must seek out additional training and practice.

As a concealed carrier, you have some basic responsibilities, the first one being, you need to make sure you're an asset, not a liability. In order to ensure you're an asset to the community, at the very least, you should be able to:

• Safely handle your gun in all instances, including, and especially, administrative handling.
• Understand the mechanics of your gun, and where all of the controls are. You should have achieved at least conscious competence with your gun. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this article.
• Choose a quality holster that meets the three holster requirements (cover trigger, securely hold the gun, and provide a consistent draw).
• Safely draw and reholster your gun, without muzzling yourself or others.
• Have a solid, repeatable grip.
• Place rounds on target at a variety of distances.

If you cannot check off the six bullet points above, you have zero business carrying a gun. Period.

Are there other responsibilities? Absolutely! But those aren't the point of this post, and are a moot point if you cannot safely handle your gun and put rounds on target in the first place.

Kini SafeAlert

One of the cool things we found at SHOTshow this year was the Kini SafeAlert. It's a movement detector that fits in your small safes, or on a gun lock that sends a text via wifi to a chosen phone if movement is detected.

What I found cool about this is that it's small enough to fit in a stopbox, or gun case. It's a great way to know if someone is messing with your guns or gun cases. I keep my guns locked in a gun case, but not necessarily a gun safe, though it certainly can be used in a gun safe as well. Just attach it to the inside of the door, and you'll be notified when the door is opened. 

Does it prevent unauthorized users from accessing your gun? No, but it's part of a multi-layered security system. Can it be a deterrent? Of course, the same as cameras.

I was excited to tell people about this, and a coworker asked why I'd use this instead of a camera. It's a legitimate question. This can be used in conjunction with a security camera. 

I'll tell you why I personaly don't want to use a camera: there are enough cameras in my life, I don't want to install any in my house. Essentially every moment in public is lived in view of a camera, and one of the reasons I live rurally is that I like my solitude. If I wanted to install cameras around my house and property, they'd be to watch the animals.

Being a shooter, I immediately thought of all of the ways I could implement it in my gun storage, but there are so many more uses for it. Jewelry, alcohol, medications, etc. You're only limited by your imagination. 

I've ordered one from Amazon, but you can also order from their website.

I look forward to trying this for myself in the near future and giving a full review. 

Less Lethal Options

 One thing I noticed was a marked increase in less lethal options offered. Mostly, I just shake my head and move on, because the offerings are usually craptastic "tasers" that aren't tasers at all and that require the person to be in physical contact with the bad guy.

There were definitely a few of those this year. Noteably, an unbrella and a hairbrush. Yeah, some of this stuff is hilarious ins a pathetic way, and I would never recommend any of that shit. Get yourself a good can of pepper spray and learn to use it, instead of reyling on gimmicks.

(I apologize for my inability to insert the picture correctly from my phone) 

But this year, in addition to the  typical gimmicky stuff, I saw a lot of pepper ball guns designed for the civilian market. While a large part of me believes that if you're going to carry, you need to carry a real gun, I also have to acknowledge that the pepper ball guns do have merit. In fact, I shot a couple at Industry Day and had a blast. They were just plain fun to shoot and have zero recoil, and they were surprisngly accurate. I wouldn't want to be hit with one!

I think these may be a good option for people who live in non-permissive states, or are not leagally allowed to own/carry a firearm for self-protection. (At least for now, until they enact legislation against these, too.)

I do also believe that if someone chooses to carry a pepper ball gun, rather than an actual fierarm, they need to put in the same amount of work (if not more) that a firearm owner would put in.  The user needs to understand the limitations of pepper balls, as well as how and when to deploy them.

GunDiva's SHOTShow (non-pew) Favorites

As usual, there are far too many things that we have seen to write about them all, so as I was going through my notes I decided to choose a favorite item from each day. 

Day 1

For many years, I taught, and was Associate Dean, in a healthcare program. I still have a passion for teaching, and love teaching advanced bleeding control classes. Some of my favorite booths at the show are the trauma-based ones. I was absolutely beside myself to find True Clot. This is a simulated blood product that acts so much like real blood that it's eerie. Their entire catalog of training supplies is a trauma instructor's dream.

Day 2

GunDude Jay and I are avid hikers, so the outdoor portion of the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Tradeshow always interests me. Our packs are pretty well supplied, but I'm always looking for ways to improve our gear.

Katadyn introduced an updated version of their BeFree personal filtered water bottles that I wanted to check out. We currently carry LifeStraws, but I'm not keen on having to basically lie down at a a water source and drink out of it. Plus, with the LifeStraw, there's no way to draw and store additional water, whereas with the Katadyn water bottles, you can store and carry a liter of water.

I primarily was interested in the personal water bladders, but as we spoke with the Katadyn rep, I realized that their personal pump was a much better option for us. It's small and lightweight, but more importantly, it can hook to our larger water bladders in our hiking packs.

Day 3

Two words: Smokeless Range

Last year, while at the DryFireMag booth, I learned about the Smokeless Range, which is a fun training tool from Laser Ammo involving the DFM, a laser cartidge, and a projector. I intended to buy it last year, but never got around to it. I'm actually glad I didn't buy it last year, because this year's version is much bolstered. It's about $1,200 for the software, two DFMs, two laser inserts, and a throw camera. In looking at the Laser Ammo website, there are other options available, with a wider price range.

I regularly use the Ti firearms trainer in class, and while the Smokeless Range doesn't have the depth of training for professionals, it appears to be an excellent home system, one I'm looking forward to.

We have one more day on the show floor, and who knows what I'll fall in love with then.

Industry Day at the Range 2025

Today was cold and blustery, which seems to be the norm for Range Day.

Every year, I'm excited to go, but my excitement quickly diminishes once I'm around people. It only takes one group of self-important media to take the excitement right out of me. 

My list of guns I wanted to see/try was pretty small, but Mez's list was a bit longer. (I'll let him talk about what he shot in his own post.) I did follow him into the KelTec booth to try the P57. Color me not impressed. We were given five rounds, loaded manually, not using the stripper clip, which was the first red flag for me. I specifically asked for a demonstration of the stipper clip, and just got an explanation of it. I really wanted to see it in action, but the guy working the line prefered to load the gun manually.  The second red flag, and nail in the coffin, for me was that I had THREE failures to go into battery. 3/5 rounds FAILED TO LOAD. If it happened only once, I would have chalked it up to user error, but three times (after checking my grip, and recoil management to make sure I wasn't limp-wristing it) was a 60% failure rate. I will say that Mez had a 0% failure rate, and he shot the same gun immediately before me.

I was excited about shooting the Ruger RXM, because, well Dave Spaulding is pretty excited about it and I respect the hell out of him. I handled it at my logal gun shop right before I left, I was pretty underwhelmed with it, but was still optimistic about shooting it. After shooting it, I'm still pretty underwhelmed. I had high hopes for it, thinking that it would be a good entry-level gun for new shooters.  I like that it accepts Glock magazines and that it'll fit a Glock holster, so it is a good starter gun for people who want to go in the Glock direction. The price is also right, about $450. I don't hate it, but I'm not in love with it.

               BioFire Safe gun

The gun that I can't get out of my mind was one that wasn't even on my radar. Mez pointed it out. He saw "biofire" and said he wanted to check it out, so I tagged along. I'm glad I did, because the gun mostly horrifies me, and I'm ashamed to say it was developed in Colorado. It's a "smart" gun, operates only by the owner, identified either by fingerprint or facial recognition. The owner can authorize four other users by adding them to their account. Because the gun only works for up to five authorized users, it is exempt from the Colorado safe storage laws, according to the manufacturer. I understand that they're wanting to fill a very specific self-defense niche and I respect them for that. 

However, I see way more drawbacks to the gun than advantages:

-it's bulky

-the battery life is only 1 week - 1 month, depending on use, therefore it is recommended that owners keep it plugged in at all times to keep the battery topped up. What happens if the electricity goes out? We live rurally, and extended electrical outages are not uncommon.

-should the owner injure their shooting hand in an attack, unless they've set up a second profile for their off hand, the backup verification is via facial recognition. That seems like a great idea, unless the owner's face has also been beaten.

- since it's dependent on all of the electrical components to work, what happens in the case of an EMP? 

- It's expensive, about $1400. GunDude Jay summarized it nicely when he said that it's a $400 gun with $1000 of electronics.

We did see/shoot a few other guns, but we were pretty over the cold and wind and cut the day short. 

Off to SHOTShow we go!

We're packing our bags and heading out to Las Vegas again for the 2025 SHOTshow.

Between GunDude Jay, Mez, and I, we should have brief posts daily beginning on Monday, January 20.

I hope we haven't lost too many followers during our hiatus, and we're looking forward to bring some new content.