“Professional” Attire for Firearms Instructors

I belong to several firearms instructor groups on Facebook. In one such group, a member recently asked the following question:

“Are shorts acceptable for an instructor? Range or classroom? Would you consider them “professional attire” for someone in an instructor role?”

I have a rather unique lens through which to view such questions.

I have metastasized Stage IV cancer. The median survival rate of my type and stage of cancer (from diagnosis until death) is 30 months. It’s been 28 months since my diagnosis.

I’m feeling good now, but if I look at the statistics, I’m not going to be around that much longer.

With that fact in mind, do you think I give a fiddler’s fuck about whether or not some stranger on the internet approves of the clothes I wear while I teach class? In the grand scheme of things, such concerns mean absolutely nothing. If I’m going to be dead in a short time, exactly how much time should I spend seeking strangers’ approval?

Why would that answer change if I didn’t have a terminal illness? Some things are important and some things are not. If you wouldn’t consider it important on your deathbed, why would you think it’s important now?

When I started teaching commercial classes more than 25 years ago, I wore the “tactical tuxedo” (polo and khaki 5.11 cargo pants) like all the other instructors I envied. That’s what everyone else did, so I thought it was appropriate.

Have you ever considered where that outfit came from? I’ve been around long enough to know the answer to that question.

FBI firearms instructors started wearing Royal Robbins climbing pants (the pants model was called the 5.11, named after a difficult climbing route) and polo shirts as their uniforms in the 1990s. Royal Robbins spun off the 5.11 pants into a separate sales division called 5.11 Tactical in 2003. That’s the brand you all know well.

There weren’t a whole lot of professional commercial firearms instructors in the business in the 1990s as compared to now. Most of the commercial instructors in the business at the time had taught at the FBI academy or at least at their regional offices. Those commercial instructors emulated the FBI instructor/agent look because it appeared sharp and was somewhat unique. I remember when wearing 5.11 pants from an obscure outdoor clothing company (which had to be ordered by mailing the company a physical order form and a paper check) was like a secret code. It meant that you were one of the cool kids who played with guns for a living.

In 2003, skinny Greg was teaching a knife class in the 5.11 tactical tuxedo. Note none of the other students were wearing 5.11 yet.

Looking back on that time, it now seems quite odd. Most firearms instructors I know are free thinkers and a bit anti-authoritarian. Even if those instructors were (or had been) cops, very few had a high level of respect for the FBI. Yet everyone jumped at the chance to LARP like an FBI instructor without the slightest bit of cognitive dissonance.

My problem was that I liked to lift weights and I have big legs. The 5.11 pants never fit me well. I’m not a skinny rock climber. I branched out into wearing other companies’ outdoor-style pants when I taught. Miraculously, I wasn’t outcast even though I no longer wore “the uniform.”

By the time this photo was taken in 2006, I had already ditched the 5.11 pants for more comfortable Woolrich trousers.

Then when I started teaching for myself, I found that I was a lot more comfortable in shorts. Again, no one cared.

Now I wear shorts all the time unless the weather is cold or I have to spend time kneeling or on the ground. My classes are mostly full so my students clearly don’t care too much about my lack of “professionalism.”

At this point in my life, if a student did care about me wearing shorts, I’d fire the student, give him a refund, and kick him out of class. If he cares more about what I wear than what I teach, I don’t want his business. If you come to one of my classes and the temperature is over about 65 degrees, expect to find me teaching in shorts and a T-shirt.

While I don’t want any of you to get cancer, I do hope all of you debating this silly shit on the internet will someday experience a life event so traumatic or clarifying that you learn what is important and what isn’t.

Teaching last month in shorts and a T-shirt. My observing student is clearly the one wearing the “professional” clothing in this photo.

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