Legal Seminar for Firearms Instructors

[PeteG]

Anyone who has participated in or provided firearms training knows what the phrase “you don’t know what you don’t know” means. We all experienced the phenomenon when we first received formal instruction on how to use firearms. We found out there was a lot to know that we had never thought about.

The same thing is true about how to run a firearms training program, from a one-day familiarization course to an entire training company. The legal problems are real, mistakes can have extremely serious consequences, yet most instructors simply assume they know how to deal with the issues in much the same way most males assume they know how to shoot. Experience is now showing otherwise.

Very few instructors are lawyers. Some have L.E. backgrounds, and therefore know (or believe they know) those portions of the criminal law that they had to deal with on the job. But there is a lot more involved when one assumes responsibility for training civilian populations regarding the handling and use of deadly weapons. Significant mistakes are being made.

As a consequence, I have put together a four hour seminar for those who instruct or plan to instruct, addressing some of the specific problems I have observed in current firearms programs. The objective is to challenge entrenched misconceptions, and cause instructors to think about how what they teach has to integrate with current Pennsylvania law. The Course description follows. PM me with any questions:

-------------------------------------

LEGAL ISSUES IN FIREARMS TRAINING PROGRAMS
Saturday August 8, 2015
9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Holiday Inn Express Pittsburgh W. - 875 Greentree Road, Pgh. PA. 15220 (412) 922-7070(Exit 68 off the Parkway West/I376 – Next to Parkway Center Mall)

The Premise

The very subject matter of a firearms training course – weapons and the use of force on other human beings – imply serious legal issues. Firearms instructors often undertake to explain some of the legal issues involved, but very few instructors have any formal legal training or practical experience either defending or prosecuting charges involving weapons violations or unlawful use of force. As a result, potentially serious legal errors are being incorporated into both course content and course design. It is only a matter of time until those errors cause significant loss to the course provider or one of his students.

Examples of errors observed in the past year include:
• Unwittingly training students to use methods which, if observed in an actual shooting in this Commonwealth, would be illegal.
• Course providers relying upon a release document under circumstances which make the release ineffective or, conversely, unnecessarily dispensing with the use of releases under circumstances in which the releases would offer substantial legal protection.
• Loaning firearms to students illegally.
• Accepting money to explain the law to lay students without a license to practice law.
• Students are asked to carry out exercises which oblige them to do things for which they have not been either specifically trained by the instructor in charge, or “checked out” following prior training.

Course Content

This course is designed to point out some of the more common legal problems encountered in firearms instruction programs, and to recommend solutions. The course is provided by an attorney with 35 years of litigation experience and 20 years of firearms instruction experience, and all legal principles are derived from statutes and actual judicial decisions. This is not a shooting course, and is only related to your chosen methods and techniques to the extent those methods and techniques might have particularly legal consequences. Topics covered will include:

• Limits on the lawful use of deadly force among a civilian population, and ways to incorporate those limits into civilian training.
• Civil Liability and the “Standard of Care” for both students and instructors.
• The importance and sufficiency of a written training curriculum and emergency procedures.
• Effective and ineffective use of releases and parental permission slips.
• Definition of “prohibited offensive weapons” as applied in a training context.
• Defining unlawful “Paramilitary Training”
• Restrictions on the loaning of firearms to students in Pennsylvania.
• Liability of instructors/sponsoring agencies/clubs for misconduct (negligent or deliberate) on a range.
• What constitutes the unauthorized practice of law and where to draw the line.
• Instructors as witnesses in future legal proceedings involving former trainees/students.

Presenter

The seminar will be presented by Peter Georgiades. Peter is the President of the Pennsylvania Firearms Development Corporation, and Executive Director of the Firearms Instruction, Research and Education (F.I.R.E. Institute), a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to firearms education. To the extent he has learned the art and craft of firearms instruction, he learned it by working closely with full-time professional instructors over a period of 20 years, and by taking courses specifically designed to train instructors (as distinct from training shooters). His formal instructor training courses include: Contact Defense, LLC "Contact Weapons Defense Instructor" training program; Gunsite Law Enforcement Carbine Instructor Certification Course; Marksman's Enterprise 3 day instructor courses (carbine and pistol); Stock Brothers (Giles Stock) 3-day Instructor Training; Arizona CCW Instructor Qualification – Gunsite Training Academy; NRA instructor certification programs NRA (rifle, pistol, shotgun and personal protection). Peter has been an instructor in law at the National Law Center at the George Washington University and the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie-Mellon University, and regularly lectures on the law governing the use of deadly force and firearms law.

Cost: $85 for 3.5 hours of instruction. Certificates of attendance are available for those who need them.

Who Should Attend: The course is designed for those who design or administer firearms training courses, or wish to do so. However, anyone with an interest is welcome. There are no prerequisites.

TO ENROLL: Send a letter giving your name and contact information, and a check or money order for $85, payable to “Pennsylvania Firearms Development Corporation,” to “PFDC, 2130 Fox Way, Pittsburgh, PA 15203.” You will receive an enrollment confirmation by return mail. Enrollment is first-come-first served.

If you have questions, PM Peter Georgiades.

[PeteG]

It was called to my attention that the course announcement said the cost was $85, but then at the bottom it said send a check for $80. The cost is $85.

Sorry. Terrible proof-reader when it comes to my own stuff!

[PeteG]

Has your instructor been educated as to the law governing the use of deadly force in Pennsylvania? Or is he or she repeating what he or she was told in his or her own courses over the years?

It is NOT a simple matter.