About Defensive Firearms Instruction

PERSONAL FIREARMS TRAINER

Just as the serious athlete utilizes a personal coach and trainer to maximize a training program, so it is with firearms skills.  

Improve and accelerate your defensive firearms skills with a proven, mentoring style of learning.  Personal, one-on-one training sessions will always be better for you.  It is my mission to teach you, to be your personal coach, to mentor you in firearms self-defense.  You can ask me any question without fear of receiving a verbal beat down.  I will teach you.  I am approachable.  

Having carried a firearm daily, on my person, for my individual protection for well over 30 years, I continue to participate in very stressful Force-on-Force training courses from high level instructors.  Learn from my experience.  My training style, is to habituate you to effectively evaluate a situation, and then have the ability to transition into a variety of defensive skills-unarmed, armed, and strategic-that will provide you with the most number of options for your defensive problem solving.

Providing personalized instruction in armed self-defense to you – the mature individual who wants to obtain and develop self-defense firearms skills to protect yourself and your family –  is what I do.  My training focus is to educate, mentor, and train you to function primarily as an independent individual; you are, in fact, your own first responder.  This establishes your defensive skills foundation.  Progressing to “advanced levels” will be a function of your commitment to your personal safety.

Couples and family training is empowering, valuable, and a natural progression of your individual skills.  Learn, train, and protect as a team.

I will be your personal coach and mentor in the art, science, and law of “the gun”.

You Will Learn

SAFE FIREARMS HANDLING – LIVING WITH YOUR GUN

You administratively handle your firearm much more than you actually shoot it.  You handle it when you make ready to go to the range for training or practice.  You handle it at the range before the training/practice.  You handle it again when you make ready to return home and you handle it, yet again, when you field strip and clean it, not to mention all the other times that you show/tell your friends and family your guns.  None of those tasks involve pressing the trigger on a live round yet “accidents” with loaded firearms persist.

Learn how to live with your guns and safely handle them at the same time.

MARKSMANSHIP

The ability to place effective hits on your intended target fast enough, and accurate enough…for the situation

MECHANICS

How your gun operates…so you will be certain of its condition and can take decisive action to keep it running

MINDSET

Learn and develop a legal, and ethical, “attitude” about your self-defense so you can make good decisions, soon enough to matter.

DFI goes far beyond teaching you how to press the trigger to stop a deadly attack.  It is not enough to simply know how to “run your gun”.  In a defensive use-of-force there will be 2 battles to manage…

#1 TACTICAL- Save your life and/or the lives of innocents

Learn the Mechanical and Marksmanship Skills needed for armed defense.  Learn how to prepare for your likely physiological reactions to a violent attack…that can affect your decisions/actions during the attack and the immediate aftermath.  Learn decision making under stress.

#2 LEGAL-How to manage the legal aftermath of your defensive use of force

DFI provides detailed instruction, insight, and feedback on the legal use of force as well as the practical use of force.  That means training in, and testing of, skills and skill sets in the context of the legal system as it pertains to self-defense laws.  Develop your legal Mindset.

YOU are the good guy; you must conduct yourself as such!

If you are not educated, trained, and prepared for the entire process, you are whistling past the graveyard.  Knowledge is power.

PERSONAL TRAINING

I am your Personal Firearms Trainer and Mentor with over 31 years of combined experience in teaching civilian, military, and law enforcement personnel in the firearms training disciplines.  You will get patient and professional instruction in the art, science, and laws of armed self-defense using modern small arms that you might utilize to defend against a Violent Criminal Actor (VCA).  I have successfully taught novice students as well as SWAT officers how to protect themselves with firearms.

COUPLES/GROUP TRAINING

Couples, family training, and small group lesson plans are available. 

Corporate Events. 

Force Multiplier Training.

LAW ENFORCEMENT/MILITARY TRAINING

Training is available for advanced officer training, pre-academy familiarization, annual and/or periodic re-qualification, in-service training, remedial firearms training, pre-deployment personal armed qualification, and plain clothes carry.

Active-Duty Law Enforcement Officers
  • Do you feel that the in-service defensive skills that you have obtained from your agency/department could be better?
  • Do you want a better chance at prevailing in an Officer Involved Shooting?
  • Learn relevant skills that will improve your survivability from a veteran NRA Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor and Chief Range Safety Officer.
Pre-Academy Cadets
  • Police academies do not build gunfighters; they “train” students to pass a minimum standard that does not address the unequal initiative and unequal armament of a violent attack.
  • Learn about a proper and legal mindset to truly protect yourself.
  • Get ahead of the rest of your class with firearms instruction from a veteran police firearms mentor and instructor in a relaxed atmosphere…without the stress of your academy instructors!
  • Group rates available.  Contact DFI.

QUALIFICATIONS

  • California Department of Justice, Firearms Safety Certificate (FSC) Certified Instructor
  • Authorized CCW Trainer, Ventura County Sheriff’s Department
  • 28 year veteran law enforcement firearms trainer
  • NRA Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor-multiple firearms platforms
  • Certified Use of Force Analyst-Force Science™ Research Center
  • United States Marine Corps Rangemaster

TEACHING STYLE

While I am proud to point to my Marine Corps and Law Enforcement backgrounds as lifetime credentials, the stereotypes that are part and parcel to those professions are NOT the primary part of my regular teaching persona.  Realizing that people learn in different manners, I use proven adult learning methods of teaching new gun owners/new shooters and tailor my instructional style to the individual with patience and a building block model.  This fosters, enhances, and accelerates their learning experience.