By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A clinic being held this weekend by the Missouri Department of Conservation will teach women gun safety and how to use various firearms.
Parker Rice Corporal with the Department in Buchanan County says the clinic on Sunday filled up very quickly.
Rice says he believes the popularity of the course stems from a general curiosity about guns.
"And where else can someone go and get the quality of instruction they're going to receive for free, shooting free ammo, potentially free ammo, and get a broad array of firearms to shoot it out of?" Rice tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "I mean I don't know anywhere else that you can do that."
Rice says that while this clinic filled up quickly, there will be another in the future. The date is still to be determined.
Rice Corporal says he stumbled upon the idea to hold a clinic for women thanks to his background in firearm instruction with the department.
"Some guys if they're interested in firearms, or learning about them, probably have a friend that has some firearms that they can consult," Rice explains. "I just thought I would pitch it to women to see if the interest was there and it looks like it is."
The clinic was open to women age 18 and older.
Rice says the clinic will begin with a dry fire clinic at the department shop building.
After a short break for lunch, Rice says they will then move down the hill to the shooting range at the conservation area.
"It's just going to be a basic live fire clinic as far as we're going to shoot different targets in a pretty relaxed environment, I've got several real quality instructors coming in to help me with this so we can maintain a safe range but just get the opportunity to shoot a wide variety of firearms at their own pace," Rice says.
The clinic at the shooting range will go from noon to 5pm.
