FAQ
Congratulations, in an unpredictable world you have chosen to obtain your CCW permit to protect yourself and your loved ones. But skill with a firearm is only the first part of your protection network. The second, and often most critical element in protection is defending yourself from criminal or civil prosecution. CCW Guardian is a proven methodology for recording education, certification, training, and practice as a “liability inoculation” to help defend against lawsuits or prosecution.
Military and law enforcement train with their tools and weapons regularly to hone their skills, learn new ones, test their abilities under realistic conditions, and demonstrate proficiency to an established standard. Some do it better than others, but they all scrupulously document their training.
This is a hedge against liability, as in a court of law your testimony may not be enough. In other words in some courts if it wasn’t recorded (in writing) then it “didn’t happen.”
As a CCW permit carrier you will have none of the protective presumptions courts give government employees and their training records. The wrong prosecutor or a civil trial lawyer will attempt to paint you as reckless or negligent.
By dedicating your time and effort (and ammo) to practice and study – and using our system to professionally document your training- you are building a record of responsibility. A history that shows you take the awesome responsibility of carrying a firearm seriously and maturely.
That’s our purpose and our mission statement. It’s why we built CCW Guardian.
And why does it cost money? Well. Hey, we gotta pay the bills.
Military and police have long known through years of court experience that any use of force decision will be heavily scrutinized months after the fact in court. What takes a split second in the middle of a dark night to occur will be “Monday-morning quarter back’ed” by those who were not there.
The attack will be claims of “recklessness” or “negligence” on your part. Regardless of the actions of an attacker, regardless of their criminal past, lawyers will examine your actions for months – looking for a payday.
Or worse, an anti-second amendment prosecutor with a political agenda and an axe to grind against CCW permit holders will want you as his pet case.
The solution most often used by military and police is to document their training and professional education and certifications. These records help to support their testimony by honestly and professionally demonstrating through court-proof records that they take their training and responsibility with firearms seriously.
That’s where CCW Guardian comes into play for you.
I want to weigh in on an issue concerning questions I’ve had that an attorney may try to use CCW Guardian data to claim, essentially, …”you are such a good shot you should have just wounded the assailant.” This is an old lawyer’s trick, commonly used against police.
I have 36 years of experience here and have been certified by the State Circuit Courts and a pair of US Federal District Courts to testify as an expert witness in a use of force cases, so hopefully I have some idea of how these things work.
While an unscrupulous lawyer may try anything, your defense counselor should easily shut this poor argument down.
Remember, before the use of a CCW handgun, you must ensure that the assailant has the ability, opportunity, and intent to cause you or your loved ones serious bodily harm or kill you. That is, an imminent threat to your life.
Using a CCW weapon to stop an assault is generally not legal if you are not in fear of your life – or the situation is such a reasonable person wouldn’t draw the conclusion you were truly in jepardy. Ergo, shooting to wound would be proof you weren’t truly in fear for your life. That’s a lawyers trick.
Certainly while you may not want to be forced to take another’s life to defend yours, you must understand and be prepared for that to be the end result…in the gravest extreme. You shoot to stop (not kill or wound) a deadly assault.
I cannot fathom where showing how seriously you take your responsibility as a CCW permit holder by training and then documenting your training would not illustrate your concern and respect for the law.
And the public at large.
The idea is one used by police and military marksmen for decades. You demonstrate through your training records a familiarity and skill with a particular firearm – yours.
Every firearm is a little different and by recording the training with your individual firearm you prove that the skills applied in the worst moments of your life were trained, reasonable, and necessary.
The use of force to defend yourself or another has to be a deliberate act. That is, you acted reasonably, and with full consideration of the consequences – but the perpetrator by their actions left you without other options. It takes away the lawyer’s argument that the defense of yourself was accidental or worse, reckless. Both can cost you everything you’ve worked for and/or your freedom.
Of course in an ever-expanding world of information data security issues, we take the recording of your firearms and their serial numbers very seriously. State of the art encryption protects your data, masks such information on your smartphone in case you lose it, but keeps it ready for when you really need it. And when you will need it will be to prove the firearm you have worked with and built your skills with is the one you employed to protect yourself or your family.
The details you record about training events the more professional the record will appear and the more serious it shows you to be. Location data, especially when backed up by CCW Guardian’s GPS technology, will help authenticate your training and assist you in recalling details.
The same goes for the weather data. The greater the detail of what is essentially an official record, the easier to authenticate in court.
It demonstrates proficiency to anyone who looks at your target. It also shows you take the responsibility of firearms carry and training seriously. Documenting the good groups with the bad groups also shows the record is accurate and you are honest. Nobody expects you to be perfect, just not reckless or negligent.
