Breaking through another barrier

If you read the post about why I started shooting http://jewwithanattitude.blogspot.com/2015/09/why-i-carry-gun.html , you my remember that I grew up with parents who told me, "Guns kill people".  We had no guns in our house.  My poor brother never played cowboys and Indians cuz he had no guns.  Guns are BAD, BAD, BAD. I never let my kids have guns until I did the proper research, blah blah blah, read the whole post above.
So why am I bringing this up? Because my mom is here for a visit, and I asked her, "Hey, do you want to go to the range????"  She was so scared. No, she didn't want to go.  I've asked her before, and it was always the same thing. This time I explained that I have a great instructor, Dave Van Bruen from T.A.C. Solutions. I met him several years ago at a gun show. His business card intrigued me.  It said, "Can you survive 3 seconds". So I started using him from time to time to help with my shooting skills.  So this time when I asked my mom if she wanted to go, I said we would bring along a shooting instructor.  Shockingly, she said yes!
Today was the big day. I showed her my revolver, and taught her the basic safety rules (Keep your finger off the trigger, don't point it at anything you don't plan to destroy, consider the gun loaded at all times even when it's not, etc.)  I let her try to pull the trigger, but my Ruger has a very heavy trigger pull, so she wasn't even able to do that.  On the way to the range, she told me her stomach was in knots. I kept trying to reassure her, this is not big deal.  When we got to the range, Dave sat with us and spoke to her for a while, listening to her fears, and addressing each one. Her biggest fear was that the gun was going to shoot her.  There was a tragedy a few years in AZ where a young 9 year old girl killed her shooting instructor.  Dave explained she was using a machine gun, not a semi-automatic. The gun continues to pump out bullets, and it tends to pull upwards as it does it. She was a little girl and it was obviously too much for her, which is how the tragedy happened.  He explained that the gun she was going to use (a Ruger .22) was a nice heavy gun, and would only fire ONE time for each trigger pull.  He went over the safety rules with her again, and then it was off to our lanes. Dave is such a patient man.  He put my mom in a chair so she was comfortable. He had this special foam block that has a cut outs to rest the gun on. (It's really for long guns.)  He showed her how to load it, and then he gave her the gun. She fired it off, and hit the target. She was so shocked when it fired; I saw her flinch.  He put another round in the magazine for her, and she did it a second time. She was too scared to have more than one round in at a time.

She was SOOO PROUD of herself, as well she should be.  You will notice how her trigger finger is NOT on the trigger? Way to go Mom, that's perfect!
She fired more, and I meanwhile worked on several things. First, I tried out a Sig Sauer p938.  I was also using my little Sig Sauer p238. The first one takes 9mm and the second takes .380. I was toying with the idea of moving to that one. (Truthfully, I am very happy with the Sig p238, and I think I'm gonna stick with it for now.)

I wanted to work on changing magazines while in a defensive situation, but that didn't go over too well. I did it once or twice, and then gave up for now.
Meanwhile, Mom moved to a standing position ...

Dave and I worked on placement for my gun while I am carrying it. So we put my belly band on, and emptied the gun, and played around with where it is most comfortable. We also realized I really need to work on pulling the gun out to a defense stance and shooting within 3 seconds.  Did I mention I had to aim and fire two shots in that time???  Well, we worked on it.  I filled up the center of the target, so for the last few rounds, I was aiming for the 7.

Overall, I am very happy with my groupings. I am happy with the work we did, as well as the homework Dave gave me to do.  My mom left the range not only losing her fear of guns, but she actually ended up enjoying herself so much that she wants to go the range with my brother next week when she visits him! She did a complete turn around on this issue. All I can say is, if my mom shot a gun, ANYONE CAN!

 I guess you can see how happy I was to see her shoot!

Dave grabbed a shot of us, you can see I was about to fire in this one, or maybe I was firing? IDK.

End result? Two happy ladies! Thanks Dave, and happy shooting everyone. Stay safe!