Oregon Firearms Academy
In the News!

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Oregon Firearms Academy teaches defensive use

by Shannon Filonczuk
Lebanon Express Writer

The Oregon Firearms Academy reorganized earlier this year. With a business office in Lebanon and a private range in Brownsville, it continues to serve law enforcement officials, corrections officers, private security personnel, private detectives and citizens with training in small arms proficiency.

"We go beyond just the basics," said instructor Dan Abbott, "up to a level equivalent to near SWAT team ... very competent."

In 1997, the academy began operations as a business. This year, Abbott, an instructor at OFA since 1999; Sergeant Rick Benson of the Linn County Sheriff's Office, who helped begin the OFA; and doctor Marion Ratliff, an OFA instructor and LCSO reserve lieutenant, took over ownership.

The OFA offers 16 courses. The beginning course focuses on basic handgun safety. This course notes the seriousness of using deadly force and the responsibility of an armed private citizen to meet the basic handgun safety requirements for obtaining a concealed handgun license. The OFA offers unique courses, Abbot said, including Glock handgun training, courses on disarming others of firearms and how to defend against being disarmed, and courses in which students drive their vehicles onto the shooting range for instruction on how to defend themselves entering, exiting or inside the vehicle.

The school's specialty is defensive tactics, using available means and circumstance, and only using a firearm as the last line of defense, Abbott said.

"We're teaching how to avoid or stop the threat, not how to kill."

"We're not teaching people to be vigilantes," Abbott said.

The training OFA offers slowly increases in intensity to prepare its students to react properly when under stress.

"They have to make decisions under stress," he said.

When that is a private citizen, often that means, "verbalize and get out of there ... use the cell phone, get out and let the police deal with it," he said.

The greatest accomplishment the OFA can have, Abbott said, is to teach students to avoid a confrontation where deadly force is needed. But, if the situation comes down to drawing a firearm, the OFA's goal is to instruct, especially law enforcement officials, to use their firearms proficiently enough to make it home to their families at the end of the day, he said.

After 9/11, the number of students attending OFA has not increased over previous years, but the attitude of students has become more serious, Abbott said.

For more information about OFA's services, call 451-5532 or visit its website at www.oregonfirearms.d2g.com.

POSTED: Wednesday September 18, 2002

Article reprinted with permission, requested on 9-20-02, from Shannon Filonczuk of the Lebanon Express