About
Dan Ribacoff
NRA-certified firearms instructor, licensed private investigator and career security professional — teaching South Florida to shoot safely and well.
Four decades in investigations, security and firearms
Dan Ribacoff has spent his career in a field where preparation is not optional. A licensed private investigator, polygraph examiner and security professional, he has worked investigations, executive protection details and security operations for private clients, corporations and attorneys, and has appeared as a subject-matter expert on national television. Firearms instruction grew naturally out of that work: over decades of carrying professionally and training alongside law enforcement, he saw how much of what passes for firearms “knowledge” is folklore, and how quickly a patient, competent instructor can replace it with real skill.
Today he teaches as an NRA-certified instructor through Delray Firearms Training, working primarily one-on-one with students across Palm Beach and Broward County.
The approach
Dan's teaching philosophy is simple and unglamorous: safety is the entire foundation, fundamentals are the entire game, and everything else is decoration. Students do not start with tactical drills. They start with the four rules of safe gun handling, understood well enough that they hold up when a student is tired, nervous or distracted. Then grip. Then sight alignment. Then trigger control. Live fire happens once, and only once, those things are in place.
What that means in practice: a first-time student typically spends the first portion of a lesson never firing a shot — handling an unloaded firearm, dry firing, learning the manual of arms. Students almost universally say afterward that this is why the live-fire portion felt calm instead of overwhelming.
Who Dan teaches
- Complete beginners who have never touched a firearm and want to learn correctly the first time, before habits form.
- New gun owners who bought a firearm, took it home, and realized nobody ever showed them how to actually run it.
- Florida concealed carry applicants who need training that satisfies the state requirement — and who want more than a signature on a certificate.
- Women who want instruction without condescension, in a private setting, at their own pace.
- Parents and families who keep firearms at home and want everyone in the household to understand safety and storage.
- Experienced shooters who have plateaued and need an outside eye to diagnose what's gone wrong.
- Security and professional personnel maintaining or upgrading skills.
Credentials and background
| Instruction | NRA-Certified Firearms Instructor |
|---|---|
| Professional background | Licensed private investigator; polygraph examiner; executive protection and private security operations |
| Specialties | Handgun fundamentals, AR-15 and carbine, shotgun, concealed carry, home defense, firearm selection and maintenance |
| Media | Frequent expert commentator on investigative and security topics |
| Service area | Palm Beach County and Broward County, Florida |
Why private instruction
Large group classes are efficient for the school and mediocre for the student. In a class of twenty, an instructor may watch any individual shooter for two or three minutes total. Bad grip goes uncorrected. A flinch gets reinforced fifty rounds deep. Questions go unasked because nobody wants to be the one holding up the line.
Private instruction inverts that. The entire lesson is spent on your hands, your firearm and your questions, and the curriculum adapts in real time. If you show up planning to learn concealed carry draw work but your grip is fundamentally wrong, that gets fixed first — because everything downstream of it depends on it.
What to expect from a first lesson
- Conversation. Your experience, your reason for training, what firearm you own or are considering, any concerns or injuries.
- Safety block. The four universal rules, facility-specific commands, and what “cold line” and “hot line” mean.
- Manual of arms. Loading, unloading, chamber checks, malfunction clearing — all with an unloaded firearm until it is automatic.
- Dry fire. Grip, stance, sight alignment and trigger press with no ammunition present.
- Live fire. Close targets first, one round at a time, with correction after every string.
- Debrief. What improved, what to practice, and what the next session should cover.
Booking
Lessons are arranged by appointment, seven days a week, throughout Palm Beach and Broward County. The training location is confirmed when you book. Firearms, eye and ear protection and targets can be provided; ammunition and any applicable facility fees are typically billed separately.