James Maier (left) meets with instructor Bayan Dakuginow (center) and fellow drawing winner, AJ Edelbrock (right) after the lesson.

Students for Concealed Carry Foundation held a drawing to give 2 students each a fundamental defensive pistol course this October.
Classes were provided by Indy Pistol Training, one of the first companies to join the Foundation’s network of instructors.
One of the winners, James Maier, sums up his experience and recommendations for this kind of training below.

James Maier:

Through Students for Concealed Carry Foundation, I heard about a drawing for a free defensive pistol course from Indy Pistol Training. I won, and SCCF enrolled me in the class.
The class built from simple safety training, to gun handling, trigger press, and then the half of the class that dealt with live fire- incorporating all we had learned in the beginning lessons into live-fire drills on a hot range.

The first half of the class was largely review, going over things I was familiar with from prior shooting. Additionally, one of the instructors, Bayan Dakuginow, explained why we were doing what we were doing. He incorporated his many experiences as a law enforcement officer as well as his experiences as a paramedic.

The drawing and dry firing exercises proved invaluable, as those of us who hadn’t practiced those aspects of gun handling were able to better transition on the firing line.

For me, the live fire session was extremely eye-opening, as I’d only ever been on linear ranges. I have never received one-on-one training from instructors.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in prior shooting was dropping the gun to see where my rounds were impacting and not finishing my strings of fire prior to checking the target. Bayan had me remediate that. As a result my trigger control improved and I scored tighter groups.

A lesson others can take from the mistakes I made initially is to focus on the front sight. When instructors say everything else should be blurred out, take them seriously; it was when I started blurring the target out and focusing on my sight alignment and trigger control that things started to come together.

While we were told prior to this class to bring a minimum of 250 rounds, I only shot 61. However, I feel like I learned more from those shots than in the hundreds in the life of my handgun.

Training is invaluable, even if you are experienced. It’s good to break down and learn what you’ve been doing incorrectly while shooting by yourself or with friends. Instructors are objective and impartial. They want to teach you concepts and fundamentals that could one day save your life or the lives of your loved ones in an emergency.

As an instructor, Bayan was honest without being insulting, he identified what I was doing wrong and taught me how to fix it. As a result, I saw improvement out of a little more than a single box of .40 ammunition.

I recommend Indy Pistol Training to anyone in Indiana or the Midwest and intend to take future classes from them to become a more well-rounded and responsible shooter, regardless of the firearm or skill set.

Students for Concealed Carry Foundation is proud to announce the hiring of our first full-time staffer, Crayle Vanest. Vanest will be filling the position of executive director.

The executive director is in charge of pursuing funding to develop the Foundation’s programs, over-seeing growth and execution of those programs, and proposing methods of furthering our mission to the Board of Directors. Vanest was chosen for the position because of her extensive past experience with both SCCF and our sister organization, Students for Concealed Carry. For SCC, she designed several education initiatives in her home state of Indiana. For SCCF, she had orchestrated a money-bomb fundraiser, and designed an intern program which spans the areas of social media management, development, and policy research.

As a staffer, she now also serves as our intern coordinator. Vanest is a recent graduate of Indiana University, with degrees in Political Science and Communication & Culture. While in school, she interned in grassroots campaigns and non-profit programs, including the Leadership Institute in the D.C. area.

She can be contacted directly at crayle@sccfund.org with any questions regarding the Foundation’s programs.

As of September 10th, 2014, Students for Concealed Carry Foundation (SCCF) became recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity, and donations to SCCF are tax-deductible. Our sister organization, Students for Concealed Carry (SCC) will remain a separate entity, continuing to focus on their original goals of legislative advocacy. Meanwhile, SCCF’s status as a 501(c)(3) organization means that we will not engage in political activity, nor do we want to; this will remain the role of SCC. However, our tax-exempt status means that it will easier for SCCF to produce high-cost, high-benefit work such as litigation and legal research.

I’d like to take this opportunity to briefly explain SCCF’s goals as an organization:

Firearms Civil Rights Advocacy
Our primary purpose is to protect the civil rights of legally permitted college students, faculty, and staff who choose to carry concealed firearms on campus; doing so through scholarly research, education of the public, and engaging in legal action when necessary. From this core purpose stem all of the goals listed below. While our sister organization, SCC, has focused on legislative and political efforts to promote and preserve campus carry since its inception, we recognized a need for research, education, and litigation on this very important issue. We plan to (1) Conduct high-quality research focusing on concealed carry on college campuses, starting by comprehensively researching campus carry laws in all 50 states. We plan to publish that information in an accessible format, allowing any student or parent to see if campus carry is legal on any college campus. The goal of all SCCF research will be to equip policy makers, students, and the public with the facts and data they need to effectively support campus carry.

In short, we will use research to (2) educate policy makers, college students, and the public at large on campus carry. Specifically, SCCF will focus on generating educational materials and providing assistance to college students who seek to educate their fellow students, decision makers, and the public through events such as scholarly debates and presentations. Where our research shows that a need for legal action exists to protect the civil rights of individuals as discussed above, such as if college regulations conflict with state law, we will (3) litigate to protect the concealed carry rights of college students. In other words, we will seek legal action in states where we believe that laws already on the books protect the right of campus carry. In many states, campus carry is not illegal, and units of government such as public colleges and universities are prohibited from making further firearms laws by state preemption laws. Yet, college campuses continue to claim that they are exempt from these laws because they are “special places”. In Regents of the University of Colorado v. Students for Concealed Carry, which ultimately legalized campus carry in Colorado, the Colorado Supreme Court found that public colleges and universities are not above the law. We believe that the laws relevant to that case are mirrored in roughly 25-30 states across the country where colleges continue to ban campus carry

Free Speech and Assembly/First Amendment Advocacy
Far and away, the largest barrier to the college student’s ability to advertise their group, recruit members, and voice their arguments in a public forum is college administration. This problem is endemic across the country; the Universities that were founded to serve as models of free expression and exchange of ideas no longer serve in that capacity. I’ve met with campus police chiefs who have threatened academic blackmail against students that participated in SCC protests, and deans that have threatened to blackball students from graduate programs due to their participation in SCC protests. Unfortunately, in many cases, students are discouraged from activism when threatened by administrators. We believe these actions from a public university are illegal, immoral, and run counter to the stated goals of almost every university. As such, SCCF will seek to (4) educate students on their First Amendment rights, giving them the confidence to properly express their ideas on a college campus. However, we recognize, as above, that education will not always succeed. Therefore, (5) SCCF will assist students encountering First Amendment issues on their campuses. If this fails, SCCF will intervene on behalf of the student, using legal action if necessary. We expect most of our First Amendment work to be related to Second Amendment activism, but we will never turn a student away, regardless of their political message. I’d also like to recognize the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education, (theFIRE.org) for their fantastic work in this field; we plan to continue working closely with them. We strongly believe that if students feel comfortable expressing themselves, many in the student body will listen to their arguments. As a reminder, SCC has filed lawsuits – and been victorious – against colleges that expressly prohibit SCC demonstrations simply because they don’t agree with the politics of the demonstration.

Thank you very much for your interest in our organization. We hope you will consider supporting our missions. If you are interested in doing so, please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

ABOUT: Students for Concealed Carry foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded to protect the Second Amendment rights of college students, faculty, and staff through research, education, and litigation.

Media Contact: Reid Smith, reid@sccfund.org

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Students for Concealed Carry Sues Ohio State University

(Columbus, Ohio) – July 7, 2014 – This week Students for Concealed Carry Foundation, Inc. filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court challenging The Ohio State University’s authority to ban lawful possession of firearms by students, faculty, staff, and other affiliates on its campuses.

The group, joined by Ohioans for Concealed Carry, believes that Ohio State’s campus gun ban unlawfully infringes on fundamental Constitutional Rights. It also disarms students to and from campus, leaving them vulnerable to violent crime on their commute in what is historically a high crime area, the University District. While Ohio law permits a concealed handgun licensee to store a firearm in a motor vehicle on OSU’s campuses, a student could face administrative sanctions from the university including expulsion due to the certain provisions in the Student Code of Conduct.

Michael R. Moran, a Columbus attorney representing the groups, points out that expulsion from Ohio State for a firearms related incident carries severe consequences for a law-abiding student including an academic record blemish that “can virtually guarantee the disciplined student may never earn an accredited degree.”

Moran is joined by attorney Derek DeBrosse of Barney DeBrosse, LLC who stated “The Ohio Revised Code is clear that the legislature retains sole authority to regulate the possession of firearms.” He added that “Ohio State’s policies are in direct violation of the law.”

Trial date is set for July 14, 2015.

The complaint as filed can be accessed here.

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Derek A. DeBrosse, Esq., Barney DeBrosse, LLC can be reached at derek@barneydebrosse.com or 614.326.1919.

Michael R. Moran, Esq., Michael R. Moran Co., LPA can be reached at mrmoran@mrmoran.com or 614.476.6453.