You and your family are sound asleep in the middle of the night. You are awakened by strange voices inside your home. What would you do? Do you know ahead of time how you would react? More importantly, have you trained yourself and your family to defend yourselves and your property against home invasion?My guess is that the answers to these questions have not been adequately addressed to keep you safe. The first question is NOT, “Do you have a gun with which to defend yourself?” That is often the first thought in self and home defense. But if you are serious about home protection then your alarm system would have warned you about potential intruders. Did the intruders have to break through hardened steel dead bolt locks to get in? Home defense is a package, not just a gun. Keeping you and your family safe means avoiding unfire, not embracing it.
These are just a couple of the pieces of advice I got from Ralli Mottar recently at “WE THE PEOPLE ALLIANCE” near Pawnee, Il. Mottar, a 15-year veteran as a law enforcement officer, owns and operates this establishment which includes live- fire handgun and rifle ranges, a gun store, firearm education and training along with central-Illinois’ only handgun training video simulator. Ralli is Certified by both the State of Illinois and the NRA. He is a Certified Law Enforcement Instructor in handgun, rifle, shotgun and Tazer. The Taser certification is a separate 2-day training course for instructors. He has trained over 3,500 people at his location in the past 6.5-years. This having been said, I consider him a true authority when it comes to firearm education and training and the massive differences between those two topics.
“Let’s take a typical concealed carry course as an example,” he started. “This 16-our course is usually divided into 2 or 3 days. The first part is the educational portion. It comprises about 75% of the total course time. The rest of the time is spent on a range where both dry and live fire sessions are completed,” he continued. This is exactly what Nancy and I experienced when we took our CC course a couple of years ago. I asked Ralli if he thought that was enough training to make the average CC student competent. “Absolutely Not!” was his answer. “The education portion of the course is to show you the tools. The training portion shows you how to use those tools,” he said. “Training starts only after the education,” he added. He highly recommends a follow-up training course after the CC student has their license. “Without more, specialized training you have no way to develop the muscle memory to react in an emergency without having to think about it and process the situation. You just do not have that kind of time when you are under attack,” he added.
This 15-year experienced firearm instructor then gave me the most alarming piece of self and home protection advice I have ever heard. He told me that handguns are the worst choices for home protection. His personal favorite is a semiautomatic rifle. The AR-15 was specifically mentioned. I asked him, why. “My answer to that is very simple,” he started. “Have you ever heard of a country defending itself with pistols? Yeah, me neither. When you are serious about protection you want the most fire power and the most stopping power available. That means a rifle”, he told me. “I think they much better than shotguns, too. The recoil of a shotgun is usually just too much to control under adverse circumstances. And we must remember, if you have to pull a gun and plan on using it, it will be under the fastest most stress filled seconds of your life. You MUST train and you MUST be prepared”, he ended.
This interview with Ralli Mottar was very educational for me and totally showed me my need for additional training to be competent and ready in an emergency. I must then also recommend that you contact Mottar to learn more about how you too can be both educated and trained in proper firearm usage.
You can reach Ralli at “WE THE PEOPLE ALLIANCE, LLC” at 217-652-9962. His training facility is second-to-none and you must come try shooting on his simulator.
E-mail him at service @wtpa.us or go to his web site www.wtpa.us. While we are talking about WTPA facilities, Ralli has agreed to host a fund raising event for FCA Outdoor Ministry on Saturday June 17th from 9am to noon. Your $50 donation will get you both simulator and live fire range time and includes lunch. You will get to have fun shooting with friends and family while supporting a great outdoor ministry. There will also be several nice door prizes given away that morning including a HENRY RIFLES .44-Mag lever action rifle.
Your $50 donation gets your name in for all the prizes and you do not have to be present to in the rifle. So get a ticket whether you can come or not and get a chance at the rifle. Only a limited number of tickets will be sold. Get your tickets by calling Ralli or you can call me at 217-257-7895.

– Mike Roux