Cameron Green is a local  instruc­tor for per­son­al pro­tec­tion. One of his ser­vices is CCW train­ing for “non-res­i­dent” Flori­da and Utah CCW’s.  I will be tak­ing a Flori­da CCW course in the spring by Cameron.  In the process of dis­cus­sion, I asked him if he might care to be inter­viewed about why some­one might want a non-res­i­dent CCW, and also if he might be inter­est­ed in writ­ing a peri­od­ic post around guns, gun safe­ty, gun reviews, etc.  Lucky me, he said yes.

Here is a brief inter­view as to why some­one might want a non-res­i­dent CCW and a lit­tle infor­ma­tion about Cam, and his ser­vice:

Q: What cre­den­tials do you have that make you qual­i­fied to be a firearms instruc­tor?  And what moti­vat­ed you to get into the field?

A:  I got involved teach­ing firearms because Ive seen a severe train­ing deficit with gun own­er­ship.… spend enough time at a range and you’ll see some scary things.  Im not one to advo­cate manda­to­ry train­ing as a pre­req­ui­site to firearm own­er­ship, but I appre­ci­ate firearm own­ers that seek train­ing on their own. Ive been shoot­ing for over 20 years, most­ly for hunt­ing pur­pos­es but Ive got­ten involved in com­pe­ti­tion hand­gun, shot­gun, and car­bine events in recent years.  Ive learned the trade by work­ing on my own firearms, read­ing reviews and tech­ni­cal atri­cles, attend­ing class­es, and talk­ing to oth­er shoot­ers.  Ive been a pub­lic school teacher for 14 years so teach­ing firearms just came nat­u­ral­ly.  Sev­er­al years ago, I became an NRA cer­ti­fied instruc­tor and pro­gressed to chief range safe­ty offi­cer and this Jan­u­ary I was appoint­ed by the NRA to be a train­ing coun­selor.  So far, Ive taught over 200 stu­dents from basic to advanced.  Last Novem­ber I trav­eled to Utah and was cer­ti­fied by the UT BCI to teach their Con­cealed Firearms Pro­gram.  Im also cer­ti­fied to teach mar­tial arts and OC (pep­per spray).

Q: What cours­es do you offer?

A: I can teach any class­es the NRA has to offer: Pis­tol, Rifle, Shot­gun, Refuse to be a vic­itim, Home Firearm Safe­ty, Muz­zle­load­ing (rifle, pis­tol and shot­gun), Reload­ing (shot­gun shell and metal­lic car­tridge), and Per­son­al Pro­tec­tion.  I have also writ­ten my own cours­es (AR First steps, Advanced Con­cealed Car­ry, Shot­gun Home Defense, and Inter­me­di­ate Pis­tol to name a few) and offer those either through my web­site or through an indus­try part­ner I teach with.  My web­site is www.gappnj.com, most of the cours­es I teach can be signed up for there… or I pro­vide a link to anoth­er com­pa­nys page where you can reg­is­ter.

Q: Regard­less of some­one’s trig­ger time, what do you hope they get out of spend­ing time in your class­es?

A: Well I offer basic class­es to advanced class­es and a stu­dent needs to know their abil­i­ty to find a class they will ben­e­fit from with­out being over­whelmed.  I do offer some class­es that every­one will ben­e­fit from regard­less of their lev­el of expe­ri­ence.  Inter­me­di­ate pis­tol is an exam­ple of that sort of class.  The course con­cen­trates on the fun­da­men­tals of marks­man­ship and was writ­ten as a bridge between an NRA basic class and the more advanced class­es I offer… but an expe­ri­enced shoot­er can always ben­e­fit from trig­ger time con­cen­trat­ing on the basics.  The CCW course I offer is anoth­er such class.  The class­room por­tion cov­ers basic pis­tol nomen­cla­ture, per­ti­nent laws for per­son­al pro­tec­tion, con­cealed car­ry pis­tols and gear, etc.  The live fire por­tion cov­ers basic fun­da­men­tals.  A novice shoot­er will learn a lot, an expe­ri­enced shoot­er will learn a lit­tle, but every­one learns some­thing… and they all leave with what they need to get both UT and FL CCW per­mits.

Q: Tell me more about the con­cealed car­ry course.  What is cov­ered in the class?

A:  The main pur­pose of this class is to get peo­ple their CCW. Many states now are requir­ing some sort of firearms train­ing in order to get a CCW and this class fills the require­ments. The course is sim­i­lar to (but not excat­ly like) an NRA first steps class or a basic pis­tol class.  There is a four or five hour class­room por­tion and then a live fire exer­cise.  In addi­tion to the class­room and range por­tion of the course, I offer fin­ger­print ser­vice, pass­port pho­tos, notary ser­vice, a cer­tifi­cate of com­ple­tion, all the appli­ca­tions, and a few oth­er things my stu­dents will find use­ful.  Every­one leaves with what they need to get there FL and UT CCW… all they need to do is drop checks in the envelopes and mail them out.

Q: Why would a res­i­dent of a state like NJ and NY where it is dif­fi­cult to obtain a per­mit, want a non-res­i­dent per­mit from anoth­er state?

A: Any­one who trav­els out­side of a “restric­tive” state could ben­e­fit from a non-res­i­dent per­mit.  I have had stu­dents that trav­el for busi­ness and some that own prop­er­ty in oth­er states. Utah and Flori­da have reci­procity with over 30 states. While NJ and NY aren’t on the reci­procity list, Penn­syl­va­nia is on it, New Hamp­shire is, Dele­ware is, Ohio is, and the list goes on.  I have links to the exact reci­procity for each state list­ed on my web­site.  Also, hav­ing a per­mit in anoth­er state makes it eas­i­er to get a per­mit in a state like Con­necti­cut or Mass­a­chu­setts or Maine.

Q: Do you have the expec­ta­tion that they should have some firearm expe­ri­ence before they have signed up for your class?

A:  Well I would hope some­one seek­ing a CCW would have firearm expe­ri­ence.  But I dont real­ly have an expec­ta­tion of my stu­dents going into that class.  I dis­cuss (and stress) fur­ther train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties as part of the cur­ricu­lum and any­one want­i­ng to get trained, I can point in the right direc­tion.  For safe­ty rea­sons, I treat every­one as though they are a novice on the range.  That way, inex­pe­ri­enced shoot­ers get a les­son in safe­ty… and the expe­ri­enced shoot­ers rec­og­nize the exer­cise for what it is.

Q: Do you draw from a hol­ster in the class? And what firearm should a stu­dent bring?

A: I dont have my stu­dents draw from a hol­ster in that class.  Thats an advanced tech­nique and I just dont have time to cov­er it safe­ly and prop­er­ly.  I cov­er draw­ing and rehol­ster­ing in oth­er class­es where I have the time to rein­force the tech­niques with dry fire excer­cis­es and live fire on the range.  I dont put any restric­tions on what firearm or cal­iber a stu­dent brings to class.  I encour­age them to bring what­ev­er firearm they are com­fort­able shoot­ing as long as it is a safe, func­tion­ing, legal fir­erarm.  We dis­cuss firearm selec­tion for per­son­al pro­tec­tion in class… as well as hol­ster designs, cloth­ing, purs­es (believe it or not), etc.  The stu­dents get a pret­ty good intro­duc­tion to con­cealed car­ry.

Q: What is the eas­i­est way for some­one to learn more and sign up for one of your upcom­ing cours­es?

A: Go to my web­site… www.gappnj.com I have pay­pal links for each class I have avail­able. Ive found Pay­pal is the eas­i­est way for my stu­dents to pay… you dont need an account, you can pay as a guest using a cred­it card. You will get an email con­fir­ma­tion that pay­ment has been received and I will send out a reminder email about a week before the class.

So there you have it.  A brief inter­view with Cam around the ben­e­fits of a non-res­i­dent CCW.

I have known cam for just shy of a year, I think, and was not aware he was a firearms instruc­tor.  I can tell you from pri­or con­ver­sa­tions with him he is a sub­ject mat­ter expert on what he says above.  I will be tak­ing one of his cours­es, and urge oth­ers to think about doing the same if they live in the NY, NJ, or East­ern PA regions.

We will be hear­ing a lot more from Cam in the future as well.  Here is why.  Some of the most pop­u­lar posts on my blog are the ‘few’ gun reviews that I have on here.   I have pro­fessed myself NOT to be a gun expert, but more a stu­dent, and thought you might ben­e­fit from a peri­od­ic post  by Cam around many of the guns he may be famil­iar with, pos­si­bly posts on tac­ti­cal con­cepts and issues, etc.  I look for­ward to intro­duc­ing you to Cam deep­er in the future, until then, I hope you enjoyed the post, and below is Cam’s con­tact infor­ma­tion if you are inter­est­ed in get­ting hold of him for a future class.

Green Acad­e­my of Per­son­al Pro­tec­tion:

• • • Phone: 732–991-8365
    • cameron@gappnj.com
    • www.gappnj.com

Oh, and if you are inter­est­ed in class­es, I say this not to cre­ate a fren­zy of calls for Cam, but because it is true, his class­es fill up VERY quick­ly, so give him a call or drop him an email if you are seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing a class to learn more and acquire your CCW.