I
am Douglas M. McCullough (Mac), President and Primary Instructor for Stone
Mountain Firearms Training Service (SMFTS). I formed this company in 2010
to serve the Atlanta area firearms shooting public with sound instruction on
the responsible, safe and effective use of handguns and rifles, armed self-defense, and
to provide an information resource for related topics.
My father taught me how to shoot a BB gun when I was about five years of age. He moved me up to .22 rifles by the time I was about seven or so and shotguns by the time I was twelve. I was hunting without supervision by the time I was in junior high school.
My first formal instruction in any kind of firearms started in 1959 when I enrolled in high school ROTC. It was there that I started a lengthy if intermittent involvement in the world of competition rifle shooting. I shot on a rifle scholarship for Harvey Vance at the
University of Houston from the spring of 1969 until I graduated in the
winter of 1971. My participation in the shooting sports includes that of a shooter, team member, coach, instructor, range safety officer, training manager and training developer.
Most of my experience has been with rifles, Infantry small arms and indirect fire weapons.
I was certified as an NRA basic pistol instructor in January of 2010 and have since then been certified to teach NRA Personal Protection in the Home and Personal Protection Outside the Home and Defensive Pistol. I am an NRA Range Safety Officer and in August of 2013 was certified to teach the new GCO Georgia Firearms Carry Course. In January of 2016 I successfully completed the Law of Self Defense Instructor's Course.
The two most influential people in all of my years of shooting were my father and Harvey Vance. My father never had a single day of formal firearms training but he was one of the best field shooters with a .22 rifle I ever knew and he was a natural instructor. Never saw him shoot any small game except in the head. Harvey Vance was the rifle team coach at the University of Houston and a better man never laced up a pair of combat boots. I miss both of them more than words can express.
For a more detailed outline of my shooting and teaching experience please click here.
We teach responsible law abiding citizens who can legally possess a firearm what they need to know about safe, effective and legal use of firearms and how to deliver accurate shots. Our focus is on handguns but we do teach basic rifle courses as well.
For more information about what we do please click here..
I have been privileged to be taught shooting skills by some very good instructors and coaches over the years. It makes sense to me that I should try to pass what I have learned on to others who recognize that they need the training.
I spend a lot of time on pistol ranges. With respect to handguns and armed self-defense what I see and hear on those ranges causes me to believe that most of the people who use these facilities are woefully under-trained if not completely untrained. When you get right down to it, it is scary.
So I believe that I know how to teach things that a great many people really need to do better. Couple that with the very liberal (small L) concealed license procedures we have in Georgia and I find myself trying to improve on what is a not-particularly-positive situation when it comes to competence with handguns of armed citizens in my state. For more on this please click here.
We believe that learning how to shoot handguns at any level should be both interesting and fun.
We teach structured courses with a logical arrangement of learning objectives and we keep our classes small.
We use PowerPoint, a variety of video sources, handouts, real firearms (with SureStrike laser kits) and simulators (SIRT Pistols) in a relaxed environment. Occasionally classes go over on time because we are not time oriented. We are results oriented. We take whatever time is needed to get it right.
There is a standing offer to break any shooting class down into a two day effort even though it is scheduled for only one day.
We want to produce students who have the knowledge, skills and attitude to become competent, comfortable and confident when they handle the firearms we teach them to use.
Click here for a more detailed discussion on how we do it.
Classroom instruction is normally done in my dining room, which is within a few miles of Stone Mountain Park. The range we usually use for basic pistol courses is likewise close to the park. Rifle and personal protection course live fire is done at the South River Gun Club (click here for more on SRGC) about twelve miles south of Conyers, GA.
It never ceases to amaze me that there is any debate on this question today. The men who debated this question when they were trying to fashion a form of government that would unite the country used English as the language and enough people understood what it meant then to make it acceptable to enough of them to make the Constitution and the Bill of Rights the law of the land.
I have to wonder if the language has changed all that much. Maybe we are expected by those who apparently feel that we should not have a right to be armed to view one of the very basic rights today in terms of the Politics of Meaning. I do not subscribe to that kind of thinking.
In any event our view of the Second Amendment is pretty clearly stated here.
