Firearms Education. NRA Instructor Firearms Education

Owner and NRA/USCCA Instructor Joe Alese With His Home Practice Range

Free­dom Fight­ers Firearms Acad­e­my is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty firearms edu­ca­tion, train­ing, and many oth­er resources for stu­dents to be con­fi­dent, pro­fi­cient, and safe exer­cis­ing their God-giv­en 2nd Amend­ment rights from a cer­ti­fied NRA and USCCA instruc­tor. 

But why choose Free­dom Fight­ers Firearms Acad­e­my? Joe Alese, own­er and lead instruc­tor, has been an avid recre­ation­al shoot­er for over 40 years and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in oth­er notable pro­fes­sions lead­ing to the cre­ation of this acad­e­my. In 2018, he com­plet­ed Act 235, reg­u­lat­ed by the Munic­i­pal Police Offi­cers Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing Com­mis­sion (MPOETC), and began work­ing as an armed secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­al. Details that he has worked include, but are not lim­it­ed to: per­son­al pro­tec­tion, employ­ee ter­mi­na­tion, school secu­ri­ty, con­certs, wed­ding venues, church secu­ri­ty, hos­pi­tal secu­ri­ty, and cor­po­rate secu­ri­ty.  Addi­tion­al­ly, Joe has tak­en oth­er train­ing cours­es due to his many assign­ments, includ­ing USCCA Hand­gun Dynam­ics, Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of School Resource Offi­cer’s Train­ing (NASRO), and Emer­gency Response and Active School Shoot­er in con­junc­tion with the Penn­syl­va­nia State Police. His cer­ti­fi­ca­tions are as fol­lows: PA Act 235, PA Act 67 (NASRO), NRA Basic Pis­tol Instruc­tor, NRA Per­son­al Pro­tec­tion Inside the Home Instruc­tor, NRA Per­son­al Pro­tec­tion Out­side the Home Instruc­tor, USCCA Con­cealed Car­ry and Home Defense Instruc­tor, First Aid, Stop the Bleed and CPR.

​As time evolved, Joe noticed a trend devel­op­ing in Arm­strong Coun­ty and sur­round­ing areas. Indi­vid­u­als were pur­chas­ing hand­guns, but were not receiv­ing any prop­er firearms edu­ca­tion train­ing regard­ing how to use them safe­ly and respon­si­bly. This “defi­cien­cy” in train­ing led to his deci­sion to cre­ate an acad­e­my where law-abid­ing cit­i­zens would have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to become bet­ter edu­cat­ed in how to respon­si­bly use and car­ry firearms for both recre­ation­al use and per­son­al pro­tec­tion.

His first step was to seek out accred­it­ed orga­ni­za­tions that mir­rored his own val­ues and beliefs. This ulti­mate­ly lead him to the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion Train­ing Cen­ter and the USCCA Train­ing Cen­ter. He then took the nec­es­sary cours­es to become  a cer­ti­fied NRA instruc­tor and a cer­ti­fied USCCA instruc­tor. Due to his nev­er-end­ing, relent­less pur­suit to be a first-class shoot­er and instruc­tor, Joe active­ly seeks out high-lev­el train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in order to become more suc­cess­ful in his craft and trains with a Grand­mas­ter. His mantra is to always strive to be bet­ter than you were yes­ter­day.

Car­ry­ing a firearm for duty pur­pos­es or for per­son­al pro­tec­tion is not to be tak­en light­ly. One must be aware of the capa­bil­i­ties of one­self, one’s equip­ment, and have the where­with­al to make split-sec­ond deci­sions while exer­cis­ing sound judg­ment. And you must know what the law says about the use of lethal force.  Work­ing as an armed secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­al, Joe has wit­nessed this first­hand. The cours­es Joe offers will not only edu­cate you; they will also expose your lia­bil­i­ties and show you how to cor­rect them.   

A com­ment that we hear all the time when speak­ing with new gun own­ers is “I don’t real­ly need to prac­tice. If I’m ever in a sit­u­a­tion where I have to defend myself with a firearm, my instincts will take over; I’ll be able to react accord­ing­ly and stop the threat.”

Sad­ly, noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth! Shoot­ing is a per­ish­able skill and if you don’t train, you will fail mis­er­ably when it mat­ters most. Remem­ber this: when under duress, your adren­a­line spikes, your fine motor skills dimin­ish and your periph­er­al vision is lost. In oth­er words, you will nev­er be able to per­form at a high lev­el if you have nev­er trained at that lev­el. You will not mag­i­cal­ly “rise to the occa­sion” in a high-stress sit­u­a­tion. In a lethal force encounter, this could mean the dif­fer­ence between life or death!

There are many “WHAT IFs” to con­sid­er; for exam­ple: What if you pan­ic and instead of hit­ting your intend­ed tar­get, you injure an inno­cent bystander? What if you make the wrong deci­sion to use dead­ly force and end up in prison? Or worse yet, what if your weapon gets wres­tled out of your hands and used against you or a loved one?  In a lethal force encounter, the first per­son to make a good hit will most often be the vic­tor. Don’t fool your­self into think­ing that you’ll be able to per­form under pres­sure with­out prop­er train­ing. That may be what you see in the movies, but in real life, that’s not the way it works.

​Whether you want to become more knowl­edge­able and pro­fi­cient with a hand­gun, desire to con­fi­dent­ly car­ry a weapon for per­son­al pro­tec­tion, want to know how to bet­ter pro­tect your fam­i­ly and home against an armed intrud­er, desire to learn about the legal rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties of owning/using a firearm, or just want to have fun send­ing rounds down-range, Free­dom Fight­ers Firearms Acad­e­my has a firearms edu­ca­tion pro­gram to fit your needs. 

Train­ings offered are both NRA cer­ti­fied and USCCA cer­ti­fied and range from begin­ner lev­el to advanced. We also spe­cial­ize in one-on-one/in­di­vid­u­al­ized train­ing. These ses­sions are two hours in length and are tai­lored to fit the indi­vid­ual needs of each stu­dent. We high­ly rec­om­mend that every­one take advan­tage of the one-on-one train­ing as it is VERY ben­e­fi­cial! 

Firearms train­ing for respon­si­ble gun own­ers inter­est­ed in self-defense & per­son­al pro­tec­tion in West­ern PA from an NRA Cer­ti­fied instruc­tor and USCCA instruc­tor.