At Riverside, the most popular class is an expanded NRA "Home Firearm Safety" that starts at 8am and runs until 3pm if we are lucky. We do not break for lunch, but instead encourage students to bring a lunch or snack.
The focus is safety, learning how the firearms operate and how to make and assure they are in a safe condition. We cover ammunition to hopefully avoid the potential hazards there, but don't bother dealing with more complex issues. It is required for each student to make firearms safe and demonstrate safe handling. No written exam. There is a lengthy discussion on the legal issues from storage, transport, and licensing requirements as well as a brief introduction to the limits of Deadly Force.
The entire class is geared to satisfying the MGL Safety Class requirements for licensing, but extremely strong emphasis is given to remind students that nothing presented provides any practical instruction and while they can now be safe with a gun shaped hunk of metal, they are not even qualified in so much as loading it, let alone firing. (in fact, we never present how to load, only how to unload)
I've had many arguments that such classes do not offer enough to make anyone safe with a gun. I have to disagree. If all they are going to do is handle the gun and not intend to shoot, it does the job. I agree that it does NOTHING to enable anyone to become a better shooter, but that simply isn't the purpose of the class. Lets face it, if someone is going to go out and take the cheapest class they can that will issue them a certificate, some and in facr, many will do so. I'd rather that class be somewhat useful in that they will be exposed to safe handling and the legal issues involved. If that is as far as the student wishes to go, that is THEIR choice.
Lets not forget, I encourage training. Most of us believe in good training. But most of us also believe in not requiring mandatory training by the government.
I'd rather offer the minimal required and make it a useful and informative class at a low cost so that people can at least get their license and then decide what KIND of class they want to attend to learn what THEY want to learn.
Sure, we use the class to help advertise the club and our other classes. We encourage the students to partake in those classes. We also promote the classes offered by GOAL, AWARE, LFI, SigArms, Smith and Wesson, etc. Frankly I don't care where people go after they leave the class, just that if they intend to get into shooting that they seek out the proper instruction for the type of shooting they wish to do.
And hopefully, we've presented a class that sets the standard for the type of instruction that they expect so that they KNOW when they take that next class if what they are being taught is of the same quality or better.
We've had people come to our classes from other 'schools' and tell us horror stories of some of the 'instruction' they have had. All I can say is that given the purpose of the class, we strive to provide the best instruction we can. It is really up to the student to decide what level of instruction they want.
I'd love it if everyone signed up for the 6 week extended NRA "Basic Pistol" course that uses 3 hours every Monday night to slowly build up knowledge and skills over six weeks to train a novice into a well rounded and skilled beginner pistol shooter. But frankly few have the time, commitment, and desire to either pay for such a course, or put in the effort. But given the choice of running an informational Saturday course or ignoring those that are looking for the easier way out, I'll take the former if for nothing more than I know that they learned SOMETHING that might keep them safe.