BLENDED TRAINING: 8 hours online, 1 day at the range
San Diego County wants sixteen hours of instruction before the Sheriff will issue your first permit. For most people the only way to picture that has been two full days away from work and family, and that is the most common reason I hear for a permit sitting unstarted another year.
The blended course splits it up. You do eight hours of classroom instruction online, on your own time, then one full day with me on the range. The Sheriff accepts the online course in place of the classroom day. The range day is not optional, and it should not be. You have to put rounds on target in front of an instructor and shoot the qualification yourself.
The online half covers the law, the safety rules and the decisions you hope you never have to make. You can learn that at your kitchen table at ten at night. What you cannot learn that way is your grip, your stance and your trigger press. I have to watch you shoot to fix those, and most people need a few of them fixed.
The course is $249 and the range day is $299. Taking both days in person is cheaper at $499, because booking two in-person days takes $49 off automatically. Blended costs more and buys you back a day. For a lot of people that is the trade that gets it done.
Cartoon by A.F. Branco, as featured in Joe’s roundup
Joe’s weekly roundup
Joe Drammissi’s Weekly Roundup is out, number 142. He leads with Keith Graves on the school shooting in Bend, Oregon, where a parent carrying concealed stopped the shooter and had to break Oregon’s school grounds carry ban to do it. Graves does not dress it up into a tidy story, which is exactly why it is worth your time.
Also in this one: Lee Williams on OpenAI announcing new firearms policies one day after Everytown recommended very nearly the same ones, and Jeff Charles on an appeals court striking down the federal lifetime gun ban for non-violent felonies.
The Gun Owners Radio 20K celebration, this Wednesday
Gun Owners Radio passes twenty thousand subscribers on YouTube this month, and they are hosting a celebration dinner to mark it. Wednesday October 21 at 6:00 PM, Elijah’s Restaurant, 7061 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Tickets are $20 and include the pasta buffet. There will be a few words from the hosts and from some of the guests you have heard on the show, and prize giveaways through the evening.
The room will be gun owners, CCW holders and instructors, which is to say your people. If you have ever wanted to talk to Michael, Dakota, Alisha or Rich with no camera running, this is the night for it.
How to stop flinching
Almost every new shooter arrives convinced that flinching is something defective about them that has to be beaten out by willpower. It is not.
Your flinch is your body doing exactly the right thing. It is the same bracing that lets you lift something heavy or throw an elbow, and it is correct everywhere except behind a trigger, where tensing anything at all, your hand, your forearm, your shoulder, moves the gun before the bullet has left it.
So you do not fight it. You give your mind somewhere else to be. There is a counting trick in this video that undoes more flinches in one range session than any amount of telling somebody to relax, and it takes me about thirty seconds to explain.
Private training, one on one
Most people have never drawn from under the cover garment they wear every single day, and a class full of other students is not where you want to discover that it does not work. An hour one on one sorts it out with your holster, your clothes and your carry gun.
Upcoming Classes
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Monday, November 2, 2026 at 4:00pm Indoor Range, The Gun Range San Diego Monday evening qualification at the indoor range in Kearny Mesa. RSVP is free, the fees are paid at the range. $60.00 |
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Friday, November 6, 2026 at 8:00am Classroom, La Mesa Classroom day. Eight hours of instruction, indoors. This is one half of what you need, whichever permit you are after. $249.00 |
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Saturday, November 7, 2026 at 8:00am Private Range, Escondido Range day. Live fire, coaching, and you shoot the qualification yourself. First permit: this is your other half. Renewing: this finishes it in one day. $299.00 |
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Friday, November 13, 2026 at 8:00am Private Range, Alpine Range day. Live fire, coaching, and you shoot the qualification yourself. First permit: this is your other half. Renewing: this finishes it in one day. $299.00 |
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Saturday, November 14, 2026 at 8:30am Classroom, El Cajon Classroom day. Eight hours of instruction, indoors. This is one half of what you need, whichever permit you are after. $249.00 |
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Monday, November 16, 2026 at 4:00pm Indoor Range, The Gun Range San Diego Monday evening qualification at the indoor range in Kearny Mesa. RSVP is free, the fees are paid at the range. $60.00 |
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Saturday, November 21, 2026 at 8:00am Private Range, Escondido Range day. Live fire, coaching, and you shoot the qualification yourself. First permit: this is your other half. Renewing: this finishes it in one day. $299.00 |
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Friday, December 4, 2026 at 8:00am Classroom, La Mesa Classroom day. Eight hours of instruction, indoors. This is one half of what you need, whichever permit you are after. $249.00 |
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Saturday, December 5, 2026 at 8:00am Private Range, Escondido Range day. Live fire, coaching, and you shoot the qualification yourself. First permit: this is your other half. Renewing: this finishes it in one day. $299.00 |
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Monday, December 7, 2026 at 4:00pm Indoor Range, The Gun Range San Diego Monday evening qualification at the indoor range in Kearny Mesa. RSVP is free, the fees are paid at the range. $60.00 |
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Friday, December 11, 2026 at 8:00am Private Range, Alpine Range day. Live fire, coaching, and you shoot the qualification yourself. First permit: this is your other half. Renewing: this finishes it in one day. $299.00 |
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Saturday, December 12, 2026 at 8:30am Classroom, El Cajon Classroom day. Eight hours of instruction, indoors. This is one half of what you need, whichever permit you are after. $249.00 |
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Saturday, December 19, 2026 at 8:00am Private Range, Escondido Range day. Live fire, coaching, and you shoot the qualification yourself. First permit: this is your other half. Renewing: this finishes it in one day. $299.00 |
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Monday, December 21, 2026 at 4:00pm Indoor Range, The Gun Range San Diego Monday evening qualification at the indoor range in Kearny Mesa. RSVP is free, the fees are paid at the range. $60.00 |
“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” -Winnie the Pooh
If the sixteen hours have been the thing stopping you, the online half is a real answer now and not a loophole. Hit reply and tell me which part of the calendar is the problem, and I will give you the shortest honest route to a permit.
See you on the range,
Bill Desy
CCW USA
619-871-9834