Firearms Safety Training Index

IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association)

What is IDPA?

IDPA is a shooting sport that emphasizes the use of handguns and equipment suitable for general defensive use. The Courses Of Fire (stages) are 18 rounds or less and try to portray some reality in the use of handguns for defensive use.

In the Atlanta area there are currently two clubs where IDPA is shot regularly:

1) South River Gun Club near Covington – 4^th Sunday of each month, signup begins at 10AM, match starts at 11AM. No late entrants are accepted. The match will usually consist of 6 stages and will require less than 100 rounds. Usually the match is completed by 2PM. The entry fee is $10 for members of South River Gun Club and $12 for non-members.

2) American Classic Marksman in Norcross – Wednesday evenings, signup begins at 6PM, match starts at 7PM. No late entrants are accepted. The match will usually consist of 2 stages and will require less than 30 rounds. Usually the match is completed by 8PM. The entry fee is $10.

Why shoot IDPA?

1) It’s fun. If you have a pistol and like to shoot it, IDPA provides a format for you to shoot under varying conditions and make shooting more interesting.

2) It’s a test of you and your pistol. You will never know how you and your pistol perform under stress until you shoot it under stress. Match stress is generally less than that of a defensive encounter, but it’s a lot more than you will encounter when shooting by yourself. Match shooting, like real life, forces you to react to someone else’s game plan rather than your own.

3) You will meet lots of nice like-minded people. Since gunowners are becoming the “secret society” of modern American culture, it can be very refreshing to meet and greet people who have the same interests as you do. Despite the attempts of anti-gun whackos to portray gunowners in a negative light, in fact, you will find the opposite to be true. At a competition, the competitors will consist of tradespeople, healthcare professionals, attorneys, business people, working mothers, and others from many walks of life who are normal, polite, and glad to hold a pleasant conversation with you. IDPA shooters tend to be a stark contrast to the foaming-at-the-mouth, red-faced, near-hysterical, and only-barely-under-control, data-falsifying, civil-rights-trampling ANTI-gun kooks and killjoys with blatantly obvious psychological problems, ethical problems, and Orwellian agendas so often seen spewing ANTI-gun rhetoric and falsehoods on TV talk shows, political hearings, and “news” programs. As the famous scientist and author Robert Heinlein noted, “an armed society is a polite society.”

What do I need to know to start shooting IDPA?

The IDPA rules are available on the Internet at www.IDPA.com. The IDPA website has a list of all IDPA clubs and contact information for each club. Most likely, there is a club near you. The club’s contact will be glad to answer any questions about the sport that you may have.