"This is a defensive firearms facility. Not a sporting facility." The man at the front of the classroom pauses to let that sink in. His smart black combat trousers and grey military-style shirt look like a designer version of a paramilitary uniform, an impression reinforced by the sleek handgun holstered at his hip. "There's no sporting use for the Glock pistol or the Uzi submachine gun. Are they fun to shoot? You bet. But there's no sporting use for them."

The students listen soberly. Like the speaker, all are wearing pistols, and many have travelled a long way to be here. A varied social mix that ranges from teachers to police officers, they've come to this desolate spot in the Nevada desert to be taught how to draw and shoot a concealed handgun in under two seconds. Rather than simple target practice, over the next four days they're going to learn how win a gunfight. This is the biggest and, it's claimed, the best firearms school in the world, and the people here are about to receive the Gospel according to Front Sight.

Even by American standards, where gun ownership is seen by many as an inalienable right and gun schools are commonplace, Front Sight is unique. Not content with dominating the US firearms training market, it also plans to become the world's first ever residential gun-community. Styled on the model of the US golf resort, the $50m facility will be a self-contained gated 'town,' where residents can live, have their children educated and indulge in their shared passion for firearms. It will have 177 one-acre home sites, 350 condominiums, a school, community centre, airstrip and all the other facilities necessary for any self-respecting community. Plus the sort of security and peace of mind that can only come from having several hundred like-minded and fully armed neighbours, all trained to the highest martial standards.

Although it will be another three years or more before the 550 acre complex is fully completed, the training facilities here are already state of the art; high SWAT-style towers, ten live-fire training simulators, as well as numerous more conventional shooting ranges. Front Sight's courses - aimed at professionals and 'law abiding citizens' - offer a standard of instruction that's higher than the US military and law enforcement agencies, in everything from submachine guns and pistols to edged weapons.

Its founder is Dr Ignatius Piazza. A fit-looking 43 year-old with a Tom Selleck moustache, Piazza comes across as part-lifestyle guru, part hard-nosed businessman. He was a gun-collecting chiropractor in California until a drive-by shooting in 1988 provided the epiphany that would eventually bring him to the middle of the Nevada desert. "It was a random shooting. Several houses along the street were hit, including mine. Fortunately no one was injured. But it left me realising that, although I owned firearms, I had never really been taught how to use them when you need them most - to defend your life," he says. "If you ask most people who own guns if they're competent they're going to tell you yes. But what they don't realise is when you have to use a gun to defend yourself it's a whole different set of skills that you need. It's a whole different mindset than just going down to the range and knowing how to load and unload a gun and hit a target. In a gunfight, just from the stress of that lethal encounter, you're going to be half as good as you are on your best day on the range."

Piazza spent several years training with what were then the top schools and instructors. And, in the process, spotted a potentially lucrative gap in the market. "I slowly realised that if I opened up a world-class shooting facility that catered to professional people and their families, without the boot camp mentality or drill-instructor attitudes that are found in a number of other schools, that people would beat a path to my door."

In 1996 he ran the first Front Sight class on leased facilities in California to just ten students. Eight years on,   Front Sight trains thousands each year; more than every other gun school in the US combined. Located about 40 miles west of Las Vegas, it sits at the end of four miles of private road, surrounded by scrub and desert. Visitors are greeted at the main gate by a uniformed guard and checked off on a list before being allowed in. Once inside, the site has a raw, newly-quarried look about it. None of the permanent buildings are in place yet - with a strict sense of priority the training facilities have been built first. Lectures are held in a large white aircraft hanger-like structure. Spread out around it are tall timber towers used for rappelling and rope-training, and high, angular banks of earth that look like bunkers but which in fact enclose Front Sight's firing ranges.

The $10m it's taken to reach this stage (there was literally nothing here originally - road, power supply and even a 1000 foot well for water had to be created from scratch) has come entirely from cash flow generated by the courses and membership. That's allowed Piazza to retain complete control (he owns 97% of Front Sight stock), without worrying about debt or answering to investors. There are currently 1800 members, who have paid between $4800 for the entry-level Iron membership, to a cool $400,000 for the top of the range Platinum, which brings with it one of the 1-acre home sites (though not a house). It might sound expensive, but over fifty of these have been sold so far, an impressive show of faith in both Front Sight's training and future.

Despite Piazza's assertion that this isn't a sporting facility, there are no doubt those who come here primarily because they love guns. But for many the motives are more serious - they're here because they feel a real need to be able to protect themselves and their families. "I'm usually armed. Obviously, there are situations that don't call for that. But if I'm going to the mall or going to get gas, or whatever, then yeah, I'm armed," says Rick Melvin, a quietly-spoken construction manager. The 54 year-old has come to Front Sight for the 4-Day Defensive Handgun course. But he'll also be staying on an extra day for the new 'Armed Citizen's Corps' training. Launched earlier this year, this qualifies students to legally carry a concealed weapon in 23 states (individual states often don't recognise each other's concealed-carry permits).

Melvin is already licensed to carry a concealed weapon in his home state of Washington, but sees being able to defend himself when he travels as simple common sense. "I'd rather have it and not need it. Which I haven't so far, thank God. Never had to draw, never had to fire. But when I was starting out as a carpenter, I'd always find that if I left a tool at home that would be the day I needed it. I think that kind of follows through with firearms. This is a bad world, let's face it. And especially with the terrorist situation after 9/11, it's sobered people's attitudes towards firearms and firearms training. You know, with the fact we could be another Israel or something like that. I just thought to myself, 'I'm not sitting in the mall or restaurant and having a couple of guys burst in the door with submachine guns and start slaughtering people, without being able to defend myself. And I think a lot of people feel that way."

Certainly, they do here. At 7.00am on the first morning, the place is already busy as students queue at the registration table, have their weapons checked and generally tool themselves up ready for the day. A handful are obviously marines, here for rifle and shotgun training prior to shipping out to Iraq ('the sandbox', as one calls it). But most are civilians here for the 4-Day Defensive Handgun course. It costs $1200 for non-members, or those whose memberships don't include all classes. That doesn't include ammunition or accommodation (there's non on site at the moment - students have to commute from either Las Vegas or the nearby town of Pahrump). There's a well-equipped arsenal, where weapons can be bought or hired, but the majority of students bring their own. Handguns - generally automatics rather than revolvers - are worn all the time, even during lunch. No one gives them a second glance, but to the uninitiated it's bizarre seeing ordinary people in jeans and baseball caps casually walking around with pistols and assault rifles. One man gives his young son a plastic bag of ammunition to carry. "That's not garbage, that's good stuff," he snaps, picking it up as the boy grumbles and drops it.

While mom or dad learn the serious stuff, children's courses teach such things as rappelling, self-defence against would-be abductors, and provide an opportunity to shoot a .22. Although it's illegal for anyone to own a gun under the age of 21, Front Sight also allows children to train with a parent, providing the adult has already attended at least one firearms session. Gary Aglietti is a Front Sight regular. A dentist from Carson City, Nevada, this will be his eleventh handgun class. This time, though, he's brought his twelve year-old son Michael and fourteen year-old daughter Lianne to take it with him. He sees Front Sight very much as a family experience; while his wife "doesn't have much interest," she's happy to do rope and rappelling classes, and one of his two older sons is also 'a shooter' and a regular visitor to the facility. The other, however, is less keen. "Gosh, he ought to live in California. He's more liberal than the rest of us," Aglietti jokes.

He has already taken Michael and Lianne target shooting, and now feels they're old enough to try Front Sight's handgun class.   "I wanted them to be safe with a handgun, even at this early age. I wanted to have someone else tell them those things I've been talking about for years." While he accepts that the chances of a random attack are probably slight, Aglietti usually carries a gun when he goes out at night or on trips with his family. In states where he isn't licensed for a concealed weapon, he'll carry one in the trunk of his car and keep it loaded in his hotel room. He regards it as 'peace of mind', the same as knowing his children could use a gun to defend themselves should the need arise. "If I got hurt, like beside the road or something, I want them to know enough to stop someone from coming up and trying to take our belongings, or harming us."

After an induction talk, the handgun students are split into two groups and sent to separate ranges. With only about 80 students in total it's a small intake by Front Sight standards. But numbers drop-off during the summer months, when temperatures can climb to well over 100°. With a humidity of only 3%, spending all day out in the desert sun can be a gruelling business. Other than the class being predominantly male there's no prevailing demographic. Ages range from twenties to sixties, and backgrounds are equally varied; professional, middle-class people for the most part, with a sprinkling of off-duty police officers ("How much training do you get from your department?" one is asked. "Not enough," comes the disgruntled reply.)

One of the few women present is Jan Jansen, a 43 year-old flight attendant from Illinois. "I've never even held a handgun before," she confesses, though she looks comfortable enough with the rented Glock automatic on her hip. Married with three children, she's come to Front Sight because she wants to feel able to use a gun, even though she has doubts about actually owning one. "And I thought it would be fun," she smiles.

On the range each group is divided into two relays, so that while one practices the other can stay in the shade, where chairs and barrels of water are provided. On the firing line the instructors - one to every four or five students - stand ready help to anyone having difficulty. Front Sight has around 150 full and part-time instructors, some from military or law enforcement backgrounds, others former students whose day jobs range from clinical psychologists to screenwriters (one even introduces himself as a ex-secret-service agent). The Rangemaster, John Woo, briefs students with the range do's and don'ts (never pick anything up from the firing line until the instructors say so, and never, ever turn around on the range with the gun still unholstered). They're also told to be on range at 8.00am sharp every morning, armed and ready to go. "Don't be late. What happens if your late for a gunfight?" demands Woo. "You miss it," quips one wag. "And what happens to your loved ones?" comes the unsmiling retort. "You need to get into that combat mindset."

The training is the same for novices and experienced alike. To start with they're drilled in the basics; how to keep their trigger finger down the side of the barrel until their ready to shoot, how to hold the gun in a double-handed grip and align the front sight to sight at the target. But it cracks along at a fearsome pace. After an hour or so the students are firing controlled pairs of shots the man-shaped targets, aiming for a hand-span grouping in the thoracic cavity (together with the head the easiest place to inflict most damage). It's stressed that the intention is not to shoot to kill, but to shoot to stop . But when you're talking about placing two or more shots in someone's face or chest, it's a fine distinction. "Is the assailant belly-up in a growing pool of blood, weapon twenty feet away? Is he out of the fight?" an instructor asks, then shrugs. "Probably."

From the start it's obvious that this is far from theoretical training; this is about learning how to actually shoot someone in a real-life situation. Phrases like 'combat' and 'gunfight' are used throughout, and there are lectures on the moral and legal implications of using deadly force. Students are told they need to draw their own 'line in the sand', and decide at what point they would be prepared to shoot someone they believed poses a real and present danger. And be prepared to live with the consequences.

Some have already drawn their own personal line. "I'm not the type of guy who tacks on a pistol to go down to the local store to buy milk. It's only for home invasion protection," says Frank Umbro, a 51 year-old airline pilot. "As the police will admit,   they just can't get to every crime scene, even if you manage to get a 911 call off to them. You have to be able to protect yourself and your family." Others are more proactive. Mike Guymon is also a pilot, flying 767s to Hawaii. This is his second defensive handgun class, part of his preparation for becoming an armed Federal Flight Deck Officer. He has already almost used his gun on one occasion, when a motorist 'went crazy' and attacked the car he and his son were in. "When I produced a firearm he left. Immediately." If the man continued his attack, he says, he wouldn't have hesitated to shoot. "And if anyone were to try and break into my cockpit there would be no question about using deadly force. Had the crews on the American and United flights had firearms I'm sure 9/11 would never have happened."

There is very much a sense that the people here feel threatened, to varying degrees, by the society in which they live. Like many of his fellow students, Timothy Daniel grew up with guns, taught by his father how to use and respect them. An elementary school teacher, this is his first visit to Front Sight, prompted by what he sees as a growing need to protect himself, his family, and even his pupils. "Five years ago I would never have considered carrying a gun. Society has just changed," he says. "As a teacher you see that   children are basically raising themselves, because the parents are not responsible enough to do it. And they aren't doing a very good job. It's sad." Recently his school in Electra, Texas, has seen a high school student shoot himself and received numerous bomb threats. Within the past year he has also had children as young as 7 or 8 bringing large knives into his classroom. "Where does it lead from there?" he asks. "Obviously, I can't carry my gun at school, but I can at least be a little more prepared of how to react if there is something that ever goes on."

Talking to the students, two things become clear. One is that most genuinely pity countries such as the UK, where gun ownership is by and large illegal. The other is that what Piazza describes as the caricature of gun-owners as 'the beer-drinking, foul-mouthed AK47-shooting white separatist, with the NRA sticker on his jacket', is noticeably absent. A large proportion of people here might be NRA members, but for the most part they come across as polite, friendly and intelligent individuals, who happen to not just believe in the Second Amendment, but also that society (especially a post-9/11 society) is a far safer place when responsible and well-trained people like themselves are allowed carry guns.

"People from Europe, or anti-gun people from the States don't understand who actually owns firearms, and who trains with firearms, and may not understand that society is actually safer when law abiding citizens are trained, and even carry concealed weapons. Society is safer because criminals don't know who is armed and who's not," says Piazza. "And regardless on what side they stand on gun control, everyone agrees that if law abiding citizens are going to own firearms, they should be trained."

It's a seductive argument, although one that falters a little when the question of introducing mandatory training is raised. "Anytime you tell any American that they must do something, then they're automatically going to resist. I think your country found that out a little over two hundred years ago," Piazza says easily. "No, I don't support mandatory training; what I support is educating people to the fact that this would be a good thing for them to consider. And then once they've made the decision on their own, that they should get training. Then you've really got something."

The students, at least, would agree with that. On the first two days they're drilled repeatedly in the basics of how to present (guns are never 'drawn'), aim and fire a weapon. "The goal is to shoot as fast as you can make the hits," Woo tells the class. "No one ever won a gunfight by speed re-holstering." They're taught how to shoot at night with a torch, and also how to carry out emergency reloads and clear malfunctions. "The click of an empty chamber in a gunfight is the loudest sound you will ever hear," says Woo, solemnly.

But it's days three and four are when the fun really starts. These are what's called 'hot' range', which means guns are holstered still loaded after an exercise, as opposed to the unloaded 'cold range' of the first two days. So far the targets have been static; now they flip around and back again, giving an increasingly short firing window in which to hit them. The students are also treated to the live-fire simulators. Decked out like rooms in a house, these produce both 'friendly' and 'hostile' targets, with only split seconds to decide which is which.  

Late afternoon of the final day is the graduation exercise. This takes the form of a 'skills test', where students have less than two seconds to present and shoot the gun from under a concealing shirt or jacket, at varying distances from the target. From three metres they have just 1.6 seconds to put two shots into the target's chest before it flips out of sight; from five metres there's the relatively luxury of 1.9 seconds to make five head shots. And so on, until they're shooting from up to 25 metres away.

"That was brutal," says Rick Melvin, afterwards. "I fell to pieces. I was just thinking of so many different things and trying to get it right. I got caught up in my cover garment and once I got rattled I lost my composure." He laughs, ruefully. "I graduated, but I was trying to get Distinguished Graduate, but it wasn't to be." He isn't the only one who found the training hard. "I've been around guns all my life, and I thought I was pretty good. But that showed me different," admits Timothy Daniels. For Jan Jansen, her first experience of shooting has been enough to hook her. "I'll definitely be going back. It was intense, but I really did learn a lot. At this point I wouldn't feel comfortable carrying a gun. But if I went through it again, then at some point, yes."

No one fails the course, which cynics might find suspicious, but which Front Sight would regard as a testimony to the standard of their instruction. Even the youngest in the class, Michael and Lianne Aglietti, manage to get through. "Oh, they had a great time. They complained a bit about, 'Hey, Dad, it's hot, do we have to do the same drill over and over again?' I said, yeah, till you learn it; that's how you learn," says their father, Gary. "My son was the fastest in the group. Our 32 guys in the line, he could get the gun out of the holster the fastest, but he was a little bit erratic with the shooting," he laughs.

Two years older and stronger than her brother, 14 year old Lianne found the training a little easier. "I didn't really know what to expect. It was my dad's idea. One friend thought it was pretty cool that I was going to Front Sight, but other people just thought I was crazy - the whole shooting, gun thing, going out to the middle of the desert to do it. But I enjoyed it a lot. I want to go back."

It isn't surprising that most Front Sight students come away making glowing endorsements or vowing to return. The training is undoubtedly first rate, and anyone willing to pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars for the privilege is likely to be simpatico to the sentiments expressed here. But Front Sight's ambitions don't stop at just preaching to - or even taking money from - the converted. Its long-term agenda is to wage a guerrilla war against the anti-gun lobby by targeting the 'opinion makers'; celebrities, media and politicians who are invited to visit free of charge in the hope they will be won over to the cause. Although Piazza refuses to reveal names, he claims numerous luminaries from music, film and politics have already visited. "Once they experience this, and understand the valuable training we provide - and then understand the very important need for this training to be in the hands of everybody - then they tend to align with us. Spread the good word."

Good or not, there's no doubt that the word is spreading. Front Sight is growing at a rate of 40% each year, and Piazza says the next twelve months will show a further 'ramping up' of operations. And with plans for a second, cooler facility in the North recently announced, the signs are that the Front Sight message will soon be delivered even further afield. Piazza's vision of armed communities is taking shape. Whether it will prove to be a crime free utopia or simply the Wild West revisited remains to be seen.

Simon Beckett, 2003

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