Any instructor worth his/her salt will produce a student manual, or some kind of reference that each student can follow along with during class and take home for future review should there be any lingering questions. All too common are copies of statutes that are either stapled together, or bound and sent with the student, or worse nothing is sent with the student at all. The law does not require a manual be provided, and it’s not very specific on exactly what you need to hand out, but let’s face it; reputation is at least 80% of our business. The better you make it for your students, the more references you will get because of it.
With imagination the only boundary to what you create, this is a time when you can either make your students feel very comfortable with what they are learning, or very intimidated with complex minutia of all those pesky statutes. The following is an example of how a person might construct a student manual;
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| Every good book, starts with a Table of Contents. This makes finding information easier for your students. |
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| This is a section of the student book GPS provides. The section in red is a description of the law directly above it, with any exemptions to the law noted under the description. Within the description GPS has listed the statute that provides the exemption, indicated by the blue box. |
Keep in mind that this book will have to be updated with law changes throughout the year. The table of contents may need to reflect these changes as well. Initially I created the GPS book in MS Word, and later broke it down so that each book chapter was it's own file. These can be loaded into MS Publisher for even more printing options. Remember it's your book, and it directly reflects upon you the amount of time and quality you put in the book.
Something our students love is our pocket book. Our CCW manual doesn't contain every little piece of the Missouri law of chapter 571. Some of these statutes don't apply to CCW specifically so we provide a pocket sized book that has every statute for chapters 571, 563, and a few miscellaneous chapters with the 'straggler' firearms laws, such as the bus hijack law, and the confiscation of weapons during emergencies. They can keep this book in their pocket, or in their car. If there is ever a question about firearms law for Missouri, that little book has the answer. As a bonus, I found that having this book printed costs the same as a full sized book. But because I get 4 of these books out of an 8.5x11 printing, I get 4 times the number of books! It's cheaper AND the customer likes it!
Feel free to add other pieces of pertinent information to the book as well. An example would be, carrying a firearm in a boat during the summer. Is it a 'motor vehicle'? NFA laws, case law references, or anything that might effect a person in their day to day dealing with carrying a firearm could be placed in the manual. If the student finds this information valuable, they will recommend you to their friends and family.
Obviously there is more to teaching a CCW class for Missouri than just your student manual, but I hope there were some tips in this that you found useful, and might help you in your endeavor.
This entry contributed by:
Jeff Dill of Gauntlet Professional Services
Jeff is a certified instructor for civilian, law enforcement, and security
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