Alan Korwin, visit his website GunLaws.com.
Few people want to address this subject openly: Gun training good. Forced training bad.
If you come out against mandatory gun training you are pilloried, and verbally attacked by leftists and other malcontents, and plenty of people who believe they support gun rights.
Each state that has mandatory training imposed as a condition for CCW permits found the government’s idea of what you need, and qualified trainers ideas don’t match at all. People took the CCW classes, thinking they had to, when what many needed was Guns 101, since they had never handled firearms before. Teaching them about actual carry in public is an entirely different ballgame.
Under a mandatory training regime, if some little old lady (or you) shoots an attacker in legitimate self-defense, and you didn’t take the approved class, you’ve committed a crime and go to jail, for what is essentially a righteous act. That’s just not right.
Government could play a positive role if it ran public service announcements, “in cooperation with this station and the Ad Council,” and put up billboards, encouraging the public to go to the range, take classes, learn about gun safety, the whole nine yards. Don’t hold your breath. Promoting the Constitution and Bill of Rights is no longer any part of the federal agenda (in meaningful ways).
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, (JPFO) publishes its no-holds-barred newsletter, The Bill of Rights Sentinel, this is coming in the next edition:
I’ve had it with all these statist gun owners and especially firearms instructors who think training should be required. Exercising your rights doesn’t require training. Failure to get training doesn’t vacate your rights or subject you to penalties. Got it? No training required to be a parent to helpless infants, none needed to buy poisons and sharp things in Home Depot, no certificate of completion needed to enter bizarre religious ritualistic buildings. Understood? Smart people get trained for everything because they’re smart. Get smart. Do it on your own. With or without whatever training, you screw up, your responsible. OK? Training doesn’t get you off the hook, at all, but it may help you stay off the hook (and it does look good to a jury). Making the government force you to be trained the way government thinks you should be is horrific.
Do you think this is a fable, just paranoia? Look:
GUN-RIGHTS LICENSING TEST PLANNED
People complain it’s just scare tactics when rights activists holler about gun bans. Here’s the bill that proves them right, HR 45 from Illinois congressman Bobby Rush, which goes beyond gun bans to ban gun owners. It is so far outside constitutional boundaries it defies belief — the man deserves to be removed from office. Also, a brief SHOT Show report with pictures
The Solution: You want everyone trained to arms, include it in school curricula. You should be firearm trained even if you don’t own a gun. Maybe especially if you don’t own a gun. Give it in school.
Stop by my local range and you will change your mind about required training. It’s gotten so bad new customers are required to have training. It’s a different world today many new gun owners get their training from video games and TV.
Hi Alan, still going on about mandatory training? LOL. Hope you\’re doing well! Russ from AZ DPS.
Forced training is bad. Teach it is school. … Um, wouldn’t that be forced training?
I’ve always felt that bans and negative penalties don’t work particularly well when trying to force behavior against laziness. Prohibitions against most crimes don’t follow the same pattern, because the average citizen isn’t likely to go commit crimes, and thus the added deterrence of penalties helps keep them from doing something that they wouldn’t do anyways. But, it should be obvious that people who are going to commit crimes are rarely deterred by penalties.
In the case of training, people will default to NOT taking the training, because they don’t have time, money, or motivation. Many people buy a gun thinking that they’ll know how to use it and that it somehow will turn them into Superman. Of course it won’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of gun owners are woefully unprepared to use their firearms to defend themselves. As you argue in this article, the best solution, in my estimation, is to help people WANT to be responsible gun owners. Make it easier for people to take classes, buy gun safes to secure weapons when not in use, etc, perhaps by making the fees tax deductible. Perhaps if people underwent advanced training, they might get some perks or benefits added to their CCW or CHL (such as reduced or waived transfer fees for a period of time). Incentivizing behavior would give people the added motivation they need to overcome the negatives of cost, laziness, etc, where penalties don’t. Bans rarely (if ever) work, if you’re banning things that people want to do. Similarly, forcing people to do things that they don’t want to do rarely works either. Legislation needs to take into account the mindset that the average citizen will have, and respond accordingly, in my opinion.
You make a lot of good points there.
Being on disability my training options are limited financially. I am more fortunate than many in being able to shoot in my back yard however. So while I may not get “proper” training I can at least keep practised in pointing and shooting my weapon. Tips on setting up home training systems with commonly found items, ie, 55 gal drums arranged in a firing course and don’t shoot the cows please!
Include it in school curricula. I learned at YMCA Cap when a youth and in High School, But that was back in the days.
Yup, mandatory training is a crazy idea. Everybody knows that a “right” automatically confers and equates to actual skill. I’m glad that being a private pilot isn’t a “right” enshrined in the constitution, because flight training would be seen as infringement.
I’m absolutely against mandatory training for CCW, and I need only ONE reason.
It’s unconstitutional.
I don’t give a rats ass what ANY Court has to say about that, today’s ‘experts’ in the Law are often indoctrinated and cannot reasonably separate their own personal feelings from the spirit of the ideals our Founding Fathers envisioned.
Any argument of ‘Public Safety’ falls short when the Courts have already ruled that the local Constabulary has NO obligation to the safety of any one individual.
1st – I will fight to the death(Molon Labe) for your “Right” to be armed.
I argue, on the net – a lot, for your 2nd Amendment Right.
Do what you want at home, But in “Public” if you are going to “Carry”,
“I” want you to be well trained in “safe” handling and how to shoot in public.
What training have you had and how many rounds a month do you shoot in practice?
The 1st Amedment, Gives us the “Right” to Free Speech.
BUT – If you yell Fire in a crowded theater, you will be held responsible for the outcome.
Same goes for shooting “in Public”.
So – “Rights” – Also carry responsibilities, in public and at home to kids etc.
So – If you are going to carry a gun, those of us who are “responsible and trained gun owners” don’t want untrained people shooting in public.
There is a lot more to it than you seem to realize.
The 1st Amedment, Gives us the “Right” to Free Speech.
BUT – If you yell Fire in a crowded theater, you will be held responsible for the outcome.
So – “Rights” – Also carry responsibilities.
Do what you want “At Home”, but if you are going to “carry” a gun, “I” don’t want untrained people shooting in public.
There is a lot more to it than you seem to realize – or maybe(sounds like) you just don’t give a s*it.
Untrained people shooting in public could actually lead to our loss of the 2A.
I’ve seen as many variants in what is defined as training as there are people who train.
Methods, carry attitudes, mechanics, thought processes, all have optional proponents as easily discerned as the differences between a Tommy gun and a Glock 19.
It doesn’t matter what any of us opines. It does matter that in a crisis, the gun owner put down range, the bullets to stop the assault.
It is said that even police miss most of the time. That’s a lot a errant and spent bullets looking for a home.
Training is vital to get you in the right frame of mind, but likely will not improve your groups on a live and drug fueled target. Sorry, been there.
You do not need training mandated to keep a gun in the home. That is your right according to Heller v DC.
You are risking your own and your family’s safety not mine if untrained.
However when you carry in public and expose my family and others to your firearm I want you to be TRAINED.
Stay SAFE.
Ken
Agree.
The 1st Amedment, Gives us the “Right” to Free Speech.
BUT – If you yell Fire in a crowded theater, you will be held responsible for the outcome.
So – “Rights” – Also carry responsibilities.
If you are going to carry a gun, “I” don’t want untrained people shooting in public.
There is a lot more to it than many seem to realize.
Usually the “Open Carry” crowd. We call them “Decoys”.
HR 45 was submitted to congress in 2009 and has gone nowhere; not even a second sponsor. no corresponding bill in the senate and no hearings scheduled. it has not even been referred to a committee for a hearing to be scheduled. it’s dead as a pork chop. plenty of things to worry about, but HR 45 is not one of them.