Dane Weatherstine, was born and raised in Baltimore Md. He was not raised around firearms because his mother had always been anti-gun and his father was not in the picture. His mother held on to this irrational fear that a firearm will kill someone because in Baltimore, killings were a daily occurrence. It took many years for her to understand that this was not the fault of the firearm but rather the person. Nevertheless, the home remained gun free.
After graduating high school and working a number of jobs, Dane stepped into an Army recruiter's office and made the decision to join the Infantry and fight in Iraq. He was sent to Fort Benning for OSUT (One Station Unit Training) where he was first introduced to the M4 rifle and later the M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). It was on Sand Hill that he realized how much he loved working with the M249 machine gun so when he got his first set of orders sending him to what was then Fort Hood Texas, he landed a position as a machine gunner with the 1st Battalion, 8th Calvary Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. As an active-duty Infantrymen, it did not take long to deploy into Iraq with this new team. Many missions later Dane was medically discharged because of the injuries sustained while fighting there.
Following that, Dane decided to start attending college using the GI Bill. During this time Dane needed work and long story short, he got a job at a local gun range as an RSO (Range Safety Officer). He started work there as a customer advocate and in a few years became the training manager and lead trainer. He loved working for this company but as luck had it, he also loved a woman who worked with the company named Julia. She was educated and fun to be around so against company policy he asked her out. A few more years later, Dane and Julia were getting married, and it was Julia's turn to serve in the US Army. Life has a way of bringing you back full circle and this was no exception because Julia's first duty station was, in fact, the same Fort Hood Texas Dane had served with many years prior.
Having relocated to Texas during the covid shutdowns, finding work was difficult. Most places were forced to shut down and the places that could stay open were well staffed and not hiring. Dane started firing off his resume and a few odd jobs later he found himself working at another gun range. Texas had labeled gun ranges as essential businesses and were allowed to continue operations during Covid. It was at this new gun range Dane became a state licensed firearms instructor, NRA and USCCA instructor, and completed his Associates in Firearms Technology with the Sonoran Desert Institute. After many years of watching people struggle to solve their firearms related problems, Dane decided to author this book.
