Posted on 07/11/2010 9:15:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
A solution in need of a problem: mandatory training is of questionable legality, and gun misuse is not generally due to a lack of skill or knowledge.
In many states, to get a concealed handgun license you must complete a training class. Some states have very strict requirements for such classes, which teach not only safe use of a firearm but also the legal use of deadly force. Other states have more lax coursework requirements, often requiring only an NRA class on handgun safety. A few states have no training requirement whatsoever.
It feels a bit like challenging motherhood, baseball, and apple pie to criticize mandatory training requirements. Carrying a gun for self-defense is a serious matter, and I think any gun owner would benefit from a course in the safe and legal use of a gun. I can’t imagine any good reason to not take such a course. Nonetheless, I am skeptical of the utility — and perhaps even the constitutionality — of such mandatory training requirements.
I’m skeptical of the utility of such requirements from the standpoint of accidents. Handguns are very close to being the ultimate point-and-click interface. The instruction manuals for all modern handguns are astonishingly well-written and complete. If the instruction manual isn’t enough, you probably can’t be trusted with a hammer and nails either. About the only subtle safety issue with modern handguns: after you remove the magazine from a semiautomatic pistol, there is still a cartridge in the chamber. You need to rack the slide to eject that cartridge and render the gun safe. (And the manuals are very clear on this point too.)
Non-hunting gun accidents are pretty rare in this country. Once you remove the accidents involving alcohol or teenagers (who can’t get a concealed weapon permit anyway), there aren’t a lot left — and many of those are incidents like this. I’m skeptical that even several thousand hours of mandatory training will give someone like that the good sense that God gives to turnips.
There might be a case for mandatory training to make sure that a person carrying a gun does not use it improperly — for example, in an argument about a parking spot. But I have not seen much evidence that this is a problem. For the most part, people who carry guns seem to realize the very serious responsibility that goes with it. For all the talk about how petty disputes lead to gunfights, in the more than seven years that I have been editing The Armed Citizen, I have been astonished at how few of the more than 4500 incidents we have blogged have fit into that category.
Similarly, while there is good reason to worry about shots fired at a criminal that go astray, it’s not clear how useful mandatory training is for solving this problem. The major use of a handgun for self-defense is as a threat — it causes criminals to suddenly remember an urgent appointment elsewhere. When the victim opens fire, it is often at astonishingly short range, and under circumstances where marksmanship training is quite irrelevant.
In short: mandatory training as a safety measure may be a solution in need of a problem.
I find it interesting that states such as Washington, which have had a shall-issue concealed weapon permit law since 1961, have never imposed a training requirement — and seem to have done just fine without it.
There is an interesting constitutional question about mandatory training. The right to bear arms is a fundamental human right. If you don’t see a problem with mandatory gun training before you can carry a gun, how would you feel about mandatory training in libel, obscenity, and incitement to riot law before you could exercise your First Amendment right to draft a political pamphlet?
It is true that there was mandatory militia training in 1791, when the states ratified the Second Amendment. But that wasn’t safety training, or even training with respect to self-defense. It was training for the purpose of making members of the militia into effective soldiers — not at all equivalent to the mandatory safety training for concealed weapon permits.
There are a great many rights we enjoy in this country that are easy to abuse: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to travel, freedom of association, freedom of religious worship. But we don’t license those freedoms because someone may and will abuse them. We recognize that adults not only have great power in our society, but also great responsibility. Abuse your freedoms in a way that causes harm to others, and you will pay a price for it after the fact.
I am willing to discuss the potential that some new technology might require a more stringent approach.
For example, if someone started selling a megawatt gamma ray laser pistol that you could carry in your pocket, cost $10, and when fired would blow holes through buildings for several miles — well, that sounds pretty scary. But so far, the technology we have is not so dramatically different in the risks it carries from the arms that the Framers knew. I don’t see any stronger argument for mandatory training today than in 1791.
Useful or at least harmless. Even if you grew up with guns and know everything about them it is useful to take one of these courses to find out how the laws in your state can do to you if you use your gun.
If they really want to save lives, they should concentrate on the 40 thousand deaths caused each year by motor vehicle accidents. But they don’t really want to save lives. They really want to control gun owners.
The left hates guns. Yet the left passes laws that make it more likely that gun owners will hit what they’re shooting at, and will be more likely to NOT shoot someone accidentally. I can support that.
I learned to shoot when I was 12 and was taught by my dad and older family members. When I got my permit, the course on law was more beneficial to me than the shooting test. I shot a 92 on my shooting test with a gun I bought only two weeks prior to the test and didn’t get dinged for any unsafe behaviors. I was already a decent shot and safe. I think the course is a good idea but I don’t know that it should be required.
And the voters.
Theoretically speaking, we require people to pass a driving test to get a driver’s license, which is supposed to show a minimum understanding of how to drive.
So if there was going to be gun-use training, then I’d say that it should be along the same lines, ie - you must have proof of training (gun-use license) to buy a gun. But just like cars, you could buy as many as you could afford.
So in Tn if you don’t hit the target they can deny you a license?
Driving is not a freedom specifically protected in the Constitution, the Right to Bear Arms is. Requiring a test could easily lead to denial of that right for specious reasons - see "literacy tests and voting" for examples.
Should it be mandatory? No.
Is there "mandatory training" to vote?
Is there "mandatory training" to exercise free specch or assembly?
Ah... it's always that evil 2nd Amendment Right...
I would vote for term limits. So much more practical.
You have to make a passing grade on the shooting test, 75 I think, and you have to pass the written exam. When I took my test there were only two women in the class and 24 men. The other woman failed because she passed the written exam but failed the shooting test.
Now, I've taken four week-long Gunsite courses, but I found the CCW a valuable resource to learn the finer points of Arizona CCW law. The range session was also useful, and I took the one-day "tune up" range session the next day.
I was struck by the ignorance some of my fellow students had about when they could use deadly force. Most of them also had no idea about what to do after a shooting incident. As our instructor drilled into our heads, call for police and an ambulance, and say nothing else to the 911 operator. The only thing you should say to the police is, "I was in fear for my life, I need to talk to my attorney."
In the range session some students could barely operate their pistols. One guy had a wrong-sized magazine for his gun. Without this mere couple hours of range time, these students would be facing certain disaster in an actual self-defense situation. I believe that a 5-day course like the Gunsite 250 Defensive Pistol, or its equivalent, is the bare minimum to make one competent with the pistol.
Bottom line is, get as much quality training and practice as possible.
Then, why should there be mandatory government training to exercise another Constitutionally guaranteed right?
Didn't that sort of cleverly constructed method to deny civil rights get thrown out along with the voter "literacy" tests Southern Democrats were so fond of giving negroes years ago to keep them from voting?
I am all in favor of the *voluntary* production and distribution of “gun culture” DVDs. The purpose of this being to restore ‘family gun culture’ that has been lost over the last 60 or so years.
Much of this should be common knowledge, but has faded from society. And yet once the information is conveniently out there, it will stick around in the public sphere for a very long time.
The gun control movement is very dependent on both ignorance and fear to get its agenda advanced. But with knowledge, fear fades.
When the founders said “well-regulated” they meant “well-trained,” to use our modern vernacular.
If we were actually training the militia, which includes all able-bodied adult men, it seems to me that safety training would be fully covered as part of that.
We should emulate Switzerland: every citizen should have a fully auto military rifle in their home, and know how to use it.
Even Hitler didn’t mess with the Swiss.
Okay, then you’d simply make the requirement for a ‘gun license’ to be that you attended a gun training course from some organization that would do a good job at it, like the NRA.
With no test involved, no one could then ‘fail’, so there could be no one that conceivably would be denied the exercise of their 2nd amendment right.
And society would then know that everyone owning a gun would have the knowledge of how to properly use it.
Plus, it would help educate the young and uninformed about how not to stick a loaded gun in their mouth with the safety off.
;-P
Who gets to determine how much ‘training’ you need?
How often would you have to undergo re-training?
How much would all of this training cost?
Who would test this training – i.e. who get s to determine if you have trained enough?
At some point, people would decide it’s not worth the hassle in order to be able to defend yourself.
When do all of these ‘Training’ requirements become an Infringement on our right of self-defense?
Thread answer winner!
You are exactly right. This would be a slippery slope and unconstitutional.
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