Hehe, I'm on step 6 right now. Took my CCW course on Sunday at Deep River Sporting Clays & Shooting School in Sanford, and turned in my application at the Wake County Sheriff's Dept. yesterday. So it'll most likely be coming up on Christmas when it goes through. That's OK though, I'm using the time to prepare myself, carrying around the house to get used to it, and carrying my 3" folding knife and compact flashlight all the time to get used to that, too. I even succeeded in changing my habitual wallet-carrying spot from the right back pocket to the left back pocket after years of having it on the right. Sounds simple enough but it drove me nuts for the first week or so. I'm also using this time to figure other stuff out, such as the best way to devise a car holster, (I think a CZ-52 is going to take up permanent residence under my driver's seat) and lots of draw-to-fire exercises at home with snap caps while wearing various types of clothing. And of course range time. So it'll be three months well spent.
I really enjoyed taking the class at Deep River, the instructor and everyone else in the class was cool, (except the older lady who kept stovepiping her brand new Ruger). And the class scheduling was very flexible (they offer the course three days per week, if even one person is signed up they hold it.) And they only charged $60!
Several of us had ammo left after the course was over so we stayed on their range and passed the guns around till the rest was gone, I got to fire a Springfield XD in .40 S&W and a full-size 1911. The guy who owned the 1911 was excited to try my Makarov, he had run across a couple in Iraq and had been wanting to try one out.
