This group usually has some pretty solid discourse and I would love a sense check on an idea.
Trying to figure out if this is useful or if I’m overthinking it.
I’m a firearms instructor in Roanoke, VA. Black, queer, left-leaning. Most of my day job is actually in arts/culture/education, not the gun world. I got into training because I kept seeing my various communities trying to navigate safety stuff with either bad info or a bunch of right-wing baggage attached to it.
What I keep running into is that people don’t always want a yes/no answer on guns. Sometimes they’re scared or don’t trust themselves or someone they love with to have access to a gun. Sometimes they don’t know if they could get themselves to a place where they could implement lethal force, even to defend their life.
They’re asking something more like:
“Given my life, my politics, and where I live, how do I actually get a little harder to mess with?”
So here’s the idea I’m kicking around:
1:1 readiness consults that are actually tailored to the person.
Rough version:
- you fill out a short intake (living situation, routines, concerns, boundaries, etc.)
- I send back a video + checklist breaking down:
- where you’re actually vulnerable day to day
- simple changes that would reduce risk
- how to think under stress in your specific context
- where tools (including guns, if at all) fit — or don’t
I’m happy to handle CCW training if someone decides they want to go that route (and love teaching people how to shoot). But I’m just as interested in working with people who are like “no gun in my house, period” and still want to be more prepared.
Not trying to sell this here. Just trying to sanity check it before I put real time into building it.
For folks here:
- does this sound useful to you or people you know?
- anything about this feel off or like a red flag?
- what would you want included or explicitly not included?
Feel free to tell me this is dumb or already exists or no one would pay for it. I’m genuinely trying to pressure test it.
Appreciate it.
(P229 Legion EDC and Winkler fixed blade for kicks)