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City People

Have gun, will travel to teach

A retired Army Special Forces member makes a new career out of showing others how to shoot.

By MICHAEL CANNING
Published August 18, 2006

RUSKIN

The cardboard target didn't stand a chance.

One .223-caliber hole after another punched through it as dirt burst up from behind.

Closing in on a zig-zagging pattern was Dave Harrington. His awestruck students watched in the background.

Hunched behind his AR-15 assault rifle, Harrington unleashed a steady fusillade of fire at Ruskin's Gun Craft Pistol and Rifle Club.

When his rifle ran dry, he let it hang from his body and smoothly drew his 1911 pistol. Now big .45-caliber holes ventilated the target. He kept moving and firing, using different angles of approach and retreat.

Harrington turned to his students and said: "Your direction of travel is based on your object of focus."

That maxim has applied to Harrington's life. It's led him through a long military career to civilian life in South Tampa, where he plans to satisfy his lifelong yearning for action and adventure on his own terms.

Harrington, 45, operates Martial Gun Inc., his vehicle for teaching shooting techniques and tactics. It's little more than a pickup and enclosed trailer filled with $16,000 of target equipment.

Harrington has 23 years of military experience, the last 16 of which he spent in the Army's Special Forces.

During that time, the 6-foot-1, 240-pound native of Baton Rouge, La., became a skilled warrior. He qualified as an expert infantryman, conventional and HALO (high altitude, low open) paratrooper, Ranger, and finally combat weapons craft instructor at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, N.C. Some of the nation's most elite counterterrorist fighters trained under Harrington there.

Now Harrington wants to keep teaching people how to fight with guns, only his way.

By the time he began contemplating retiring from the Army a few years ago, "I kind of felt like I had a leash on me, to a certain extent. Some of my (teaching) concepts were readily accepted, some of them were not."

Harrington decided that his fighting philosophies - inspired by legendary shooters such as Wyatt Earp, Ed McGivern and Jeff Cooper, as well as martial arts icon Bruce Lee - would better gel outside the rigid confines of the military. So he left the Army in June 2003 and joined his soon-to-be wife, Candace, in Tampa, where she works as an FBI agent.

The two met during a shooting course that Harrington was instructing. "She was definitely above average," Harrington said of her shooting skills. They live in Sun Bay South.

Spinal fusion surgery on his neck in April 2004 sidelined Harrington for several months. But now he finds himself traveling for a Martial Gun training gig about once a month.

Clients include FBI and Secret Service agents, police officers, professional security guards and private citizens of all skill levels.

Harrington also competes regularly.

"He was a good shooter when I met him," said Ken Hackathorn, a tactical shooting instructor who met Harrington at a competition in 1996. "Now he's become a great shooter. Dave would easily rank in the top 10 percent in the IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) arena."

Harrington doesn't keep track of the awards he's won. More than anything, it's his evolving teaching approach that compels him.

"I've made the shift from simply teaching someone how to use firearms to developing the individual as well," he said. "I basically organized my training to give the individual the opportunity to make decisions for themselves."

Dave Harrington

AGE: 45

PROFESSION: Firearms instructor, owner of Martial Gun Inc.

FAVORITE GUNS: .45-caliber 1911 pistol, .223-caliber Smith and Wesson M&P15 rifle

FAMILY: Wife, Candace; stepson Cameron, 8.

NEIGHBORHOOD: Sun Bay South, but Harrington and his family will soon move to Palma Ceia.

TRUCK: 1998 Ford F-150 Super Cab 4x4

FAVORITE RESTAURANTS: J Alexander's, Ruby Tuesdays

PETS: Three cats - Catdog, China, Sissy

LAST BOOK READ: Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee's Commentaries on the Martial Way

FOR CLASSES: Call (813) 434-6126

[Last modified August 17, 2006, 11:07:27]