The problem may be with the instructors rather than the techniques. Through experience, I've found that in some cases wives have a difficult time learning firearms safety from their husbands, or even with the husbands nearby
I've seen evidence to support this, first-hand. I'd say a rule-of-thumb should be husbands don't even attempt this. Unfortunately, there are many instructors who aren't all that good, too. But yes, firearms is an awful lot like billiards--everyone feels some personal guilt about not being able to do it well or even perfectly, without any training or practice or experience of any kind. Again, it's a cultural thing...every drunken retard with a penis feels inherently obligated to society to demonstrate some level of skill and prowess at the pool talbe. No reason, It just IS. Same with guns. Little wonder so few folks actually LEARN anything under these conditions.
Just shot next to a couple last weekend, in fact. Now, he wasn't bothered with trying to teach her safety...he was trying to get her to shoot. He asked for my assist when he suffered a few FTCs with a new Berreta. Hmmm...three visits to his lane, three times I had to pull his forefinger off the trigger while trying to clear the jam. Bad juju. Of course I did it in the nicest way I could...without cutting his b&&ls off, which I would have done had his spouse not been there. But again, why should he know this? No reason. There's no public range I know of that asks if you know and understand ANYTHING about gun safety before you staple up a bad-guy target.
I'm about as pro-gun rights as you can get, but it seriously baffles me why our culture is okay with, essentially, letting anyone walk in off the street and shoot next to ME...with not even the equivalent
pertinent credentials generally required to rent a car or a sailboat. Funny. The approach we take to deadly weapons has the same element of reason as our approach to religion...with roughly the same outcome.
Oh, BTW, the '180 rule' applies only if you're the ONLY shooter standing at the firing line, as in an IDPA match. It's a '95 degree rule' if you're at a line abreast of other shooters. Duh.