@Rick D Well hopefully things change! When I lived in Assachusetts for 30yrs I had similar frustrations.

All joking aside, look this up: https://alaskaforceonforce.com/training/ If it's anything like the Force-on-Force training in my neck of the woods, I HIGHLY recommend it. Just check them out if you have the chance!

@Stephanie I think that you taking up arms and exercising your right as an American to bear arms is great! My wife had been scared of guns her whole life, until I taught her gun safety and let her shoot at her own pace. Of course I warned her before that owning firearms and range training is kind of addictive! Despite my advice she was hooked 😆 Another thing that I tell people who dislike guns, is that a kitchen knife, or a hammer, or a baseball bat, can all easily be used to take another persons life, but it's who's holding those things that dictates it's use. A gun is only dangerous when used by a criminal, or an untrained gun owner. All that aside, soak up any firearms training that you can find at all, and maybe take up a defensive hand-to-hand type fighting class. There are a lot of women around where I've lived that take kick boxing, or a kick boxing/aerobics class.

That's the best to learn from. That family heritage must've been great growing up for you!

That's great that you were able to use your Grandfathers rifle. Was it yours like passed on down to you, or did he just let you use it? See I only had two people in my family that were pro-gun, so we were the black sheep in the family because of the whole "2A thing." And yes, that was the close mindedness that I had to grow up with, PLUS living in Assachusetts didn't help at all. Never mind that the Lone Ranger was my hero as a kid lol What's scary is that, minus the years of military training that you have, you sound a lot like me! Years of interest into all things military, picking up little pieces of history here and there (weapons of course). Self Defense training, of which you have a crap ton of, and range time for me is almost exactly how you described it. Shutting out the noise of the world, and focusing on each shot. Getting better slowly over time, and taking pride in your successes. I know that you've been in more than a few gun competitions, but I'm still dragging my feet about getting into an IDPA match just to see where my skills are. I'd bring my AK with me, just so that I can be called Un-American 🙄

Sounds like he was a good wealth of knowledge, and a great guy all rolled up into one. You are fortunate to have had him as a teacher!