Aiming to educate

In order to find Brock’s Gap Training Center, you have to know nearly exactly where you’re going. 

The main entrance — the second left off of South Shades Crest Road — is marked by a welcome sign and a small gate accessible only through a membership key card. BGTC’s front gate opens to a thin, winding road that leads to the expansive, members-only, eight-range facility. 

The training center caps its membership at 1,000 and is seemingly closed to the public, except for weekend competitions and matches. 

Now, the facility is opening its gates to youth interested in marksmanship. In July, BGTC welcomed an inaugural class of 15 students to the Brock’s Gap Youth Marksmanship Training program. 

“[The program] is rather unique,” youth marksmanship program coordinator David Landier said. “The fact that you don’t have to be a member here is significant … and [the program] is heavily subsidized by the club. We offer this program for $50 to youngsters, and that includes firearms, ammunition, targets, their book, their certification — all for $50.”

Landier noted that the use of the ranges is also free to junior members who have gone through the program to encourage young shooters to practice and continue participating in gun sports. He added that much of the appeal of shooting sports lies in their perceived inclusivity. 

“Guns don’t know whether you’re a boy or a girl,” Landier said. “They don’t know whether you’re a very coordinated and athletic type of individual or whether you’re like I was — I was skinny and tall and gangly and uncoordinated.”

The program is personal to Landier, who developed a love of shooting sports at a young age. He began shooting competitively at the age of 13 after his grandfather died. 

“When I started shooting, I stuttered very badly and was severely dyslexic,” Landier said. “And, as a result I had a learning disability. But guns don’t know that. They don’t know that, and they don’t care.” 

After a career of competitive shooting that culminated with Olympic qualifiers, Landier gave up competitive shooting around the age of 18, but, his love of marksmanship followed him throughout his lifetime. 

He attributes the confidence and life skills that have afforded him career and personal opportunities throughout his life to his time as a competitive shooter. 

“My personal feeling is that it had a significant effect on my life,” Landier said. “It took a 13-year-old kid who stuttered and was dyslexic. Most people wouldn’t look at him and think he could become a mechanical engineer.” 

 Now in his 60s, Landier is active in the shooting community once again. He moved to Hoover eight years ago after retiring from a career in engineering and re-entered the recreational shooting community. Landier decided to teach marksmanship to youth at Brock’s Gap to spread his love of marksmanship to the next generation. 

“The youth program is an attempt to reach out to young people, get them to learn how to use firearms in a controlled, structured environment so that they learn all of the basics to a point where they are safe around firearms, and also to encourage them to participate in the firearm sports,” Landier said. 

In addition to National Rifle Association rules, students are taught three major guidelines as a part of the youth marksman training: do not point the gun in an unsafe direction; do not have your finger on the trigger unless you are firing; and do not have the gun loaded unless you are firing. 

“There are three basic rules in shooting,” Landier said. “And in order for something bad to occur, all three of those rules have to be broken.” 

Students are taught to shoot a rifle and a pistol on a controlled, 50-yard range. Instructors initially teach students to shoot from a distance of about 50 feet, which helps eliminate bad shooting practices early on, according to Landier. 

In addition to time on the range, students receive a formal classroom education on gun safety during which they review NRA guidelines and receive instruction via presentation. 

“The very first class I taught, I noticed that two students were having a lot of difficulty reading the Powerpoint slides aloud,” Landier said. “So I talked to the parents and they said they’re severely dyslexic. Immediately, that came back to me because I had that experience.

“When we got them out on the range, they were instantly good at it. They just showed tremendous ability. And you could see it in their eyes that suddenly they were competing somewhere where there was a level playing field,” Landier said. 

Landier said BGTC is hoping to provide any students interested in shooting with experience and a passion for shooting sports that will last a lifetime. 

Children and teens between the ages of 13 and 18 can register for the program by emailing bgtc.youth@gmail.com or visiting brocksgap.com.