By Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor

When our January 2006 cover girl, Karmela Johnson, called I was delighted to hear from her. Over the course of the past six years, the Second Amendment Foundation (parent of W&G) has been holding "Firearms & Fiction Seminars" for writers each Fall, and Karmela had been one of our most enthusiastic students in 2005.

Would we be interested in putting on a seminar for her chapter of the Romance Writers of America-the Kiss of Death (KOD) Chapter, whose membership is primarily composed of those working in the romantic-mystery and romantic-thriller genre, Karmela wondered?

Since the whole point of the seminars is to reach out to those who influence popular culture, I was excited about connecting with a whole new group.

Our Fall seminars have all been held in Las Vegas and cover two days-one day of classroom and one on the range at the nearby Desert Sportsmen Club.

But in speaking with Karmela and KOD honcho Debbi Ward, the fly in the ointment turned up. Actually, it was more like a swarm in the ointment!

Where previously we had handled groups of no more than 25 writers, we would be working with a group of 100 writers this time. And, we'd have only one day to do the seminar in-and, by the way, the group would be meeting in advance of the Romance Writers of America's yearly convention-in July-in Atlanta.

The KOD crowd typically does a one-day event before the convention kicks off and has, in previous years, toured FBI headquarters, hung out with a fire department and listened to a presentation by a big-city forensics unit.

SAF, along with our partner in these seminars, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), would be the first non-government group to present to the chapters.

But the logistical problems of tailoring the program to a bigger crowd in a shorter amount of time (not to mention the summertime charms of "Hotlanta") were a big hurdle.

Presenting a lot of information on a professional-to-professional basis in a short period of time can be tricky. We naturally wanted to give the attendees as much information as possible, but we didn't want to overload them, either.

In prior, more intimate events, we used a true "seminar" approach with both presenters and attendees seated around a U-shaped table arrangement, allowing the opportunity for lots of give-and-take. In a smaller group, it's easier to judge the level of interest and to see almost immediately if you're going too fast or using too many unfamiliar terms. It's also easier to judge the level of knowledge participants bring to the seminar.

With the KOD group we were just going to have to work around these challenges.

We would be presenting the "classroom" portion at the group's headquarters hotel in downtown Atlanta. With that as a given, we began our search for a range that could accommodate the group in the afternoon. Given the date, we knew we would have to be indoors and we also knew we would have to limit the number of guns available at the range. In prior years, Firearms & Fiction has given writers the chance to shoot everything from .22 gallery rifles to .50 cal. Barretts, but the amount of time and the size of the group would dictate a much smaller array of firearms.

In many big cities, particularly in the Eastern half of the US, urban sprawl and zoning laws have combined to push shooting ranges further and further out. Atlanta is one of the biggest cities in the East and certainly among the most sprawling. We found Bulls Eye Marksman Range in "nearby" (more on that later) Cumming the best choice for our indoor shooting needs. In addition to a gun shop, the location had a 12 point range, at each of which two students and a coach could be accommodated. That would give us approximately four teams of students to cycle through the range portion, but leave us with about 75 students milling around.

We decided to use stickers to make our four teams, and, thus, the Smiley Faces, the Unicorns, the Candles and the Bees were born. (I bought the stickers at a party supply store and while I think they were intended for kids' birthday parties, they worked fine and helped with "traffic control" at the range.)

We had the core of our instructing staff in place from previous Firearms & Fiction events: SAF President Joseph Tartaro, Founder Alan Gottlieb, W&G Contributing Editor Gila Hayes, and my brother, Mark, a retired Buffalo police officer and current training instructor at the Erie County police academy. Sadly, W&G Publisher Julianne Gottlieb, who was looking forward to the event, had a last minute obligation that kept her home.

NSSF sent Shari LeGate, a skeet and double trap medalist, former head of the Women's Shooting Sports Foundation and host of "Hot Shots" on ESPN2. Shari had never attended one of our events, but was a great addition, with her competitive sports background and polished presentation style.

Also on board were Jerry & Sharon Ahern, whose combined vitae would read like that of one of the characters in the 80 or so novels they've published: former Chicago teachers, Jerry is now president of Detonics USA, and one of the country's leading experts on concealed carry methods.

Not surprisingly, Detonics also provided their CombatMaster .45 semi-auto for range use.

Also doing double duty, Glock USA (headquartered in nearby Smyrna, GA), sent the Model 17 9mm-and more importantly Chris Edwards-a 14-year veteran of the company.

Sturm, Ruger sent the Mark III .22 cal. semi-auto, the Model GP100 .38 Spc./.357 revolver and Model 77/22 .22 cal. bolt action rifle, but, alas, the company's Ken Jorgensen, a hit at other Firearms & Fiction events, wasn't available.

Also new to Firearms & Fiction was Celia Crane from LaserMax, manufacturers of laser sighting systems for law enforcement, the military and civilian gunowners. Celia brought her knowledge of the LaserMax line, firearms and knives in general, a mom's perspective and her engaging personality.

She also brought Tim Bollig of Advanced Interactive Systems, manufacturer of PRISim™, a computer judgment training simulation system.

I love it when a plan comes together!

But I was still fretting about the size of the class and the lack of almost one-on-one contact we'd previously enjoyed In years past, we've pretty much stood in front of the room (or retained our seats) and talked during the classroom portion-standing, gesturing and doing Tueller Drills as necessary.

That wasn't going to work in this situation, so we developed a two-pronged approach: a workbook of materials students could follow along with and then retain for reference and several Power Point presentations to allow everyone a visual connection to the material.

We also had to be a bit ruthless with our typical classroom schedule, paring it down to fit a very tight 4-hour format. (Debbi assured me her group would be rarin' to go and so we set the opening remarks for 7:45 am after providing a continental breakfast for the group).

After the welcome, and review of the seminar's objective's Jerry, Sharon and I held forth on Fiction vs. Reality with a few bad examples from movies, television and books. Sharon and Jerry were able to stress our major theme-that of professionalism-with examples from their own writing careers. "Remember," I told them, "if you get the gun stuff wrong, they're going to wonder if you got the quiche recipe wrong as well."

Usually a longer presentation, my dad was able to cram four thousand years or so of weapons development (starting around the Bronze Age with the development of swords and bows and arrows) into a half hour time slot. We gave the group a Timeline of Arms in their workbooks for future reference. Since a number of those attending work in historical or "period" settings, this was useful in fixing development of times (and also useful for those writers who play with time settings in fantasy constructions).

Our first Power Point presentation followed, with Mark, Gila and Shari outlining the various types of modern firearms and their uses in sport and defense.

Here students could follow along and see the difference in look of a revolver and semi-auto, as well as the different types of shotguns and rifles, as well as get the experts' take on the various guns advantages and disadvantages.
The next panel featured Mark, and Gila again, ably assisted by Jerry and Tim (who earned a black look from me by allowing a 5-minute break: it wasn't on the schedule!). These experts discussed "Intimidation, Threat and Attack Responses" and it's testament to their professionalism that while some of them knew each other, others didn't, yet they all worked together to provide various perspectives. (In my role as Great Scheduler I had planned an evening-before get together, but hadn't notified Atlanta's air traffic folks.)

Firearms safety and marksmanship basics took up the next block of time with Celia, Gila and Chris ably handing off to one another in providing solid rules of conduct while demystifying the common sense basics everyone must master before stepping on to the range.

Our next panel blended some disparate elements into a brief review of concealed carry options (handled by Jerry), gun storage and in-home access (Shari) and concealed carry laws (Alan). We provided attendees with an ATF form 4473 so that they could see the two-page sworn statement anyone buying a firearm must complete, in addition to complying with state and local laws.

Our last panel of the morning (and it was only 11 o'clock!) saw Shari, Gila and I discuss crime avoidance and response from a women's perspective.

Gila and I had discussed a "color code" format for threat levels, which most of us familiar with personal protection are aware of. I suggested we use a picture of Queen Elizabeth at Balmoral Castle as "condition white," but we couldn't find a suitable one.

Gila came up with a much better idea for all conditions from white to black, which conveys the necessary information, but in an easy to understand way (and with just a hint of tongue in cheek). I liked it so much, I'm sharing a bit of it here.
While self-defense and personal protection are serious business-and no one I know is more serious and businesslike than Gila, it's a great advantage to be able to communicate with your audience-especially a wary one, in terms they can understand. A frisky puppy and a arch-backed cat are things everyone can understand immediately.

Shari reviewed various programs available should participants wish to learn more, including the NRA's Refuse to be a Victim program.

Because we didn't have the luxury of spontaneous give-and-take during the seminar, we had asked for written questions, to be answered during lunch, provided by KOD. We also reviewed the material presented in the workbook, which included firearms and ammunition schematics, websites, pictures of the guns to be used at the range and abbreviated versions of several of the Power Point presentations.

As the attendees made ready for lunch, we issued them each a pair of safety glasses and ear plugs and "stickered" them up into four groups.

During lunch, presenters took turns answering questions which ranged from the feasibility of baking a gun into a cake for use in a jail break to how to avoid metal detectors.

Did I mention zoning laws and urban sprawl a while back? Although Bulls Eye is only 25 miles from downtown it's a mighty long trip on Atlanta's freeways, especially during construction season!

Instructors raced the two busloads of attendees to Cumming and arrived ahead with minutes to spare. Ceila and Tim set up in the conference room with the judgment simulator and the range was ready to handle two dozens of ladies at a time (yes, the group was almost entirely composed of women), that left two other groups that would be at loose ends while they waited for their turn at either live fire or the simulator.

One group "shopped" the store, asking the helpful store personnel and occasional startled regular a variety of questions (and cleaning the store out of its t-shirt supply). They could also watch live fire of their compadres on the half dozen television monitors in the store proper.

That still left one group who would have been floating about if it wasn't for the help of W&G Contributors Susan Laws and Kate Ferraro Creigh both of whom directed me to the incredibly helpful Martha and Larry Lord, part of the friendly Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) crowd.

Martha and Larry-in costume-patiently explained the sport in detail to the fourth group in a segment titled, "A Shooting Sport with a Period Twist," detailing the sport's objectives as well as the mechanics of putting together a SASS "alias."
Martha and Larry did a great job, and they did it outside under a tent in 90+ temperatures.

With four distinct segments, it was relatively easy to move the four distinct groups ("Where are all my Smileys," I could be heard to wail"Bees, please line up over here") from station to station to give them-in a 3-1/2 hour period-a pretty thorough range experience, with some nice extras they wouldn't normally encounter.

As a nice surprise, our students gave back to their teachers as we were presented with a purple gift sack of novels by members of the KOD chapter. Gila and Alan, both facing 8 hours of plane rides home were especially grateful.

We continue to believe that the Firearms & Fiction program is a useful one, which allows us interaction with groups of people who are interested in, but uninformed about guns-and whose words have enormous impact.

While we certainly would have liked more time with the group, like many a summer romance, it lingers as a pleasant memory.