Do we scare off would be shooters

[BLB68]

Perhaps, but...can you load that muzzleloader without putting any part of your body in front of the muzzle?

Well, you have to admit fingers and hands are more expendable than heads.

 

[old lady new shooter]

a lot of states require a hunter safety course for prospective hunters. so,why can't ranges require a shooter safety course before being unleashed onto the range, or when they break one of the rules? might be a good idea to pound the reason for the four rules into peoples heads as often as possible.

murf

I would support 100% a shooter safety test, only require a course for people who don't pass it.

 

[Warp]

I would support 100% a shooter safety test, only require a course for people who don't pass it.

No. Absolutely not.

1-The Right to keep and bear arms is not to be infringed. Requiring a test, requiring permission, in and of itself relegates it to the statue of privilege...not a Right.

2-Anything that adds any time, complexity, potential ambiguity or mis understanding, or effort will reduce the number of people who choose to arm themselves. This is a net negative.

3-It is far too easy for those with an agenda, if and when they have the power/authority to do so (in many locations, they already do/would), to make the test too difficult, too complicated, hard to schedule (government hours anybody??), backlogged, expensive, you name it. It would happen, inevitably. Why open that box?

We have a huge body of evidence to work with, as millions of licensed carriers are out there from states with no training or testing requirements...not to mention the Constitutional Carry states. Guess what...no different than states that require hours of training + tests when it comes to accidents, etc.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Of course, more "training" would have prevented this: :banghead:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/22/us/washington-movie-theater-shooting/index.html

Um, actually, probably yes. I can't count the number of posts I've seen here about alcohol and guns not mixing. Or that in pretty much every state it's illegal to carry while intoxicated. Or don't you consider knowing the laws that apply to one as a gun owner part of "training"?

 

[Theohazard]

I agree 100% with Warp.

Should you be required to pass a test before you're allowed to post things online? After all, people spread bad information online, some of which is potentially dangerous. When they wrote the First Amendment, our founding fathers never intended us to have such widespread access to spread information via the Internet. We need more regulations on people's First Amendment rights in the interest of public safety.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Perhaps, but...can you load that muzzleloader without putting any part of your body in front of the muzzle?

Regardless, I think the point is that it is perfectly acceptable to look down the bore...from the muzzle end...of a rifle that has absolutely verifiably had it's bolt or action removed.

When I take the bolt carrier group out of my AR or the bolt out of my Mosin, nothing wrong with taking a close up look at the crown (or equivalent)

I hope I'm not supposed to feel guilty for looking in the muzzle of my 686 when I'm cleaning it and the cylinder is open!

 

[old lady new shooter]

No. Absolutely not.

1-The Right to keep and bear arms is not to be infringed. Requiring a test, requiring permission, in and of itself relegates it to the statue of privilege...not a Right.

2-Anything that adds any time, complexity, potential ambiguity or mis understanding, or effort will reduce the number of people who choose to arm themselves. This is a net negative.

3-It is far too easy for those with an agenda, if and when they have the power/authority to do so (in many locations, they already do/would), to make the test too difficult, to complicated, hard to schedule (government hours anybody??), backlogged, expensive, you name it. It would happen, inevitably. Why open that box?

We have a huge body of evidence to work with, as millions of license carriers are out there from states with no training or testing requirements. Guess what...no different than states that require hours of training + tests when it comes to accidents, etc.

I was responding (or thought I was responding) to a suggestion that a course be required before allowing people to shoot at a range. Are you saying a range shouldn't have the right to make sure prospective patrons aren't going to endanger the existing ones? Who is then liable if unvetted patron #26 manages to shoot one or more of the other 25?

 

[old lady new shooter]

I agree 100% with Warp.

Should you be required to pass a test before you're allowed to post things online? After all, people spread bad information online, some of which is potentially dangerous. When they wrote the First Amendment, our founding fathers never intended us to have such widespread access to spread information via the Internet. We need more regulations on people's First Amendment rights in the interest of public safety.

Please see my response to Warp. I was not talking about a government test, I was talking about a range.

 

[Warp]

I was responding (or thought I was responding) to a suggestion that a course be required before allowing people to shoot at a range. Are you saying a range shouldn't have the right to make sure prospective patrons aren't going to endanger the existing ones? Who is then liable if unvetted patron #26 manages to shoot one or more of the other 25?

I didn't see/follow/understand that this was a range specific thing that proprietor of a private business might choose to do.

I have shot at a fair number of ranges, not one required a test. Only one required anything, and that was to watch a few minutes long safety video, which covered how they want things handled at their range (indoor range...don't go past firing line, pointed downrange at all times, guns set down on the 'bench' need to be unloaded actions open ejection port facing up, basically).

Any private business that wishes can pretty much set whatever requirement they want for testing, training, certification, proficiency, you name it. No problem there, at all.

 

[Theohazard]

Please see my response to Warp. I was not talking about a government test, I was talking about a range.

My mistake, I apologize for assuming.

 

[Shaq]

Um, actually, probably yes. I can't count the number of posts I've seen here about alcohol and guns not mixing. Or that in pretty much every state it's illegal to carry while intoxicated. Or don't you consider knowing the laws that apply to one as a gun owner part of "training"?

With all due respect, you're missing the point.

"Training" will NOT transform an idiot into a responsible person...Never has, never will. It will simply make him a reckless idiot who has had training. Most drunk drivers were trained on safe driving & passed tests that included questions about driving while intoxicated. There are warnings in the DMV handbook about drunk driving. They chose to ignore them. I'm sure Ted Kennedy passed his driving test & he knew he shouldn't drive drunk but he didn't care because he lacked a conscience. Princess Dianna's driver was a professional chauffeur with "training." He knew better than to drive drunk...he simply didn't care.

Here is someone with much more training than the average driver - a CA Highway Patrol Officer. He killed himself & his passenger because he decided to race on a public street. Obviously not due to lack of training, but because he was a reckless idiot & training can't cure that:


http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrT...016.html/RK=0/RS=Uzks.B_hZUvTuixjLYLw3IxRiyo-

 

[old lady new shooter]

I didn't see/follow/understand that this was a range specific thing that proprietor of a private business might choose to do.

I have shot at a fair number of ranges, not one required a test. Only one required anything, and that was to watch a few minutes long safety video, which covered how they want things handled at their range (indoor range...don't go past firing line, pointed downrange at all times, guns set down on the 'bench' need to be unloaded actions open ejection port facing up, basically).

Any private business that wishes can pretty much set whatever requirement they want for testing, training, certification, proficiency, you name it. No problem there, at all.

At my regular range the guys behind the counter size up walk-ins by engaging them in conversation and sometimes handing them a couple of snapcaps and asking them to demonstrate something on either the gun they came in with or the one they're asking to rent. The first time I went there I had actually made an appointment for a lesson, and after the lesson the instructor said I was cleared to shoot by myself in the future. They also don't rent to anyone who comes in alone without their own gun, which I once observed them articulate to a walk-in who came in alone and asked to rent something. The main guy who does this is very nice but also very clearly somebody you would not want to mess with. OTOH, the outdoor range I went to a few weeks ago didn't ask me anything except to pay the charge and the cashier seemed somewhat distracted. Guess where I feel safer.

 

[Theohazard]

"Training" will NOT transform an idiot into a responsible person...Never has, never will.

"Transform"? No, probably not. But it can have a strong influence on an idiot. And it can often improve his behavior.

Go read post #83 again. Are you claiming that I'm lying about my Marine Corps experience? Or are you yet again showing your complete ignorance on this subject?

You appear to be dealing in absolutes; you're basically saying that training an idiot is always useless. But only an idiot deals in absolutes. All sorts of people can be taught, it's just much harder to teach some people than others. And yes, a few people are beyond training, but that doesn't make training always useless. If you think it does, you're simply showing a lack of basic logical skills.

 

[jcwit]

I wasn't aware loading a muzzle loading rifle required you to point it at your face. I learn something every day on here.

Many folks who shoot a muzzle loader blow down the barrel before swabing and reloading.

Even a common sight at Friendship!

The purpose is 2 fold, to extinguish any remaining sparks/glowing embers before throwing the next charge and to soften the fowling before swabbing the bore for the next shot.

 

[Warp]

With all due respect, you're missing the point.

"Training" will NOT transform an idiot into a responsible person...Never has, never will. It will simply make him a reckless idiot who has had training. Most drunk drivers were trained on safe driving & passed tests that included questions about driving while intoxicated. There are warnings in the DMV handbook about drunk driving. They chose to ignore them. I'm sure Ted Kennedy passed his driving test & he knew he shouldn't drive drunk but he didn't care because he lacked a conscience. Princess Dianna's driver was a professional chauffeur with "training." He knew better than to drive drunk...he simply didn't care.

Here is someone with much more training than the average driver - a CA Highway Patrol Officer. He killed himself & his passenger because he decided to race on a public street. Obviously not due to lack of training, but because he was a reckless idiot & training can't cure that:


http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrT...016.html/RK=0/RS=Uzks.B_hZUvTuixjLYLw3IxRiyo-

With all due respect, you don't really know what you are talking about on pretty much everything.

Training is good, training is helpful, training can reduce the number of accidental/negligent incidents people have with firearms.

Voluntarily sought firearms training is something most of 'us' recommend, for good reason.

If you had ever actually attended training you would probably understand.

 

[Fubijar03]

I think that it is the approach and tone, not necessarily the message, that puts people off sometimes. There is a tendency in any hobby/group to lack respect and to forget what it was like to be new to it.

That being said: if being encouraged to practice and to hone your craft to become more proficient (whether in knife sharpening or tap dancing or packing a pipe) scares you off, then you have other issues. If you come for advice, then be prepared to hear what people say, always keeping in mind that they may be lying because Internet.

My $.02

 

[Sam1911]

but because he was a reckless idiot & training can't cure that:

You're still stuck on the idea that one reckless person who ignored whatever training he had proves some point about the vast majority of people who could benefit from training.

We went through this before, remember? Post 73?

Ok. I can accept that there are some people predisposed to be too reckless as a matter of personality.

SO WHAT?

It is in the nature of our very belief system to assume that such persons are rare and that the majority are capable of being taught and of being trained and of learning and engraining the lessons taught.

So your example of one doofus who couldn't or who chose not to really boils down to an argument that if this one guy couldn't be thoroughly indoctrinated in proper habits, that no one else can either and so training is useless.

And when you see that argument in its naked, shriveled glory, it doesn't hold a drop of water, now does it?

The fact that some people will be negligent, some people will be criminally hurtful, and that some people will have terrible accidents beyond their control SAYS NOTHING about whether the vast majority of others are safer (and more proficient) because of training.

Look again at Theohazard's example of training in the USMC. If you asked him whether there was some "Idiot" he can remember who ignored, forgot, or overlooked his training and endangered or even killed someone, I'll bet he'd say yes. That happens, and will always happen.

But he knew thousands, and knew of tens of thousands, of other Marines who relied on their training to operate weapons safely and properly in even the most extreme situations. They and the entire rest of the Corps benefited mightily from their training. Notwithstanding the very few bad apples who still screwed up.



Using these examples of random negligent persons as a way of trying to deride the value of training is simply fatuous.

In what other debate would we EVER accept the supposition that if the benefit of something isn't perfectly 100% universal that it does not have benefit?

Fire extinguishers can't put out every fire. Yet, we still keep them around because they put out a LOT of fires and prevent grave damage and even death in thousands upon thousands of cases a year.

Airbags don't save the life of every driver who's in an accident, yet they save A LOT of lives. Are they stupid and pointless and unnecessary because they didn't save EVERY SINGLE ONE?

This is really an immature way to try to sustain a position.

 

[entropy]

With all due respect, you're missing the point.

"Training" will NOT transform an idiot into a responsible person...Never has, never will.It will simply make him a reckless idiot who has had training. Most drunk drivers were trained on safe driving & passed tests that included questions about driving while intoxicated. There are warnings in the DMV handbook about drunk driving. They chose to ignore them. I'm sure Ted Kennedy passed his driving test & he knew he shouldn't drive drunk but he didn't care because he lacked a conscience. Princess Dianna's driver was a professional chauffeur with "training." He knew better than to drive drunk...he simply didn't care.

Here is someone with much more training than the average driver - a CA Highway Patrol Officer. He killed himself & his passenger because he decided to race on a public street. Obviously not due to lack of training, but because he was a reckless idiot & training can't cure that:


http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrT...016.html/RK=0/RS=Uzks.B_hZUvTuixjLYLw3IxRiyo-

Early on in your postings, you asserted that you had not been in the service. Until you have, and have completed BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) or the equivalent therof, you are unqualified to make such assertions. Many of us on this board have, and have seen irresponsible idiots become safe rifle handlers. (A few even became riflemen and women.)

I think the point you are trying to make is that training won't completely, 100%, forever, (etc.) eliminate idiotic tendencies in some people, and we are in 100% agreement there. With time and complacency, those tendencies may resurface and *shazam*, you have an ND or worse, like that CHiP. BTDT, though mine was due to ignorance as to how a type of handgun operated. I was 13 and had not been properly trained how to use the gun. I vowed to never be in that situation again, and in my quest to know how all guns work, ended up a gunsmith.

I believe this is why many here do attend training, or train others. As an instructor, I am constantly repeating the rules to the kids in 4-H, and thus , I reinforce them in myself. I also must model the rules as I teach, so I constantly put it into practice. Many aren't so lucky, and choose to attend training classes to not only expand their knowledge, but reinforce the basics, which include safety, at least in every course I've ever attended or taught.

 

[JPDeacon]

This entire thread has been both entertaining and frustrating. ...sorta like discussing religion. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong and nothing will get settled. The sad part, to me, is the attitude that some of the commenters express toward other members. All I can say is it must get very lonely looking down from on high at all these poor peons.

 

[revolversrbetter]

I would like it if some would-be shooters were scared off.

I've lost comfort in going to my usual range, an outdoor range that has a very disciplined range master. I've been going there for over 20 years.

I'll just tell you what I observe. I've seen one segment of the population that shows up again and again with multiple military-grade long arms and they are just reckless and clueless. It's worse when they have a girlfriend with them! They load a clip and baam, baam, baam - spraying brass everywhere, talking with that loaded firearm in their hands, rotating their body while in the shooting station and not paying attention to muzzle control, pointing to the target with one hand while holding that semiautomatic weapon in the other hand, fumbling with the next loaded clip while the partially depleted clip is in the fire position, handing off the loaded weapon to a companion, etc, etc, etc. Paying attention to everything it seems except the muzzle end of that weapon. Acting like they've got the attention span of a young millenial txting multiple people on a cell phone simultaneously. Except, it's not a cell phone they have in their hands, it's an AR or an AK.

 

[Warp]

What makes a firearm "military grade"?

They are probably loading magazines, not clips.

If shooters are sweeping anybody with their muzzle...that's when an RO needs to step in and immediately rectify the situation. Have you taken your concerns to the range master or on-hand range officers and if so was the situation handled satisfactorily at the time?

 

[Shaq]

This entire thread has been both entertaining and frustrating. ...sorta like discussing religion. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong and nothing will get settled. The sad part, to me, is the attitude that some of the commenters express toward other members. All I can say is it must get very lonely looking down from on high at all these poor peons.

Keep in mind that there is another incentive going on here that has nothing to do with safety or proficiency...it has to do with money (as a few others have noted).

To a dentist, everyone needs dental work.
To a doctor, everyone needs a physical & lots of "lifesaving" drugs or we'll all die young.
To a veterinarian, everyone's dog needs complete lab work on every visit.
To a firearms instructor, NO ONE should touch a gun without professional training, or else they'll shoot themselves & everyone around them. (Pay me or take your chances)

 

[susieqz]

i took the mandatory nys hunter safty course. i got the stupid certificate that i needed to get a hunting license
it was a colossal waste of time.
i am both a safe gun handler n proficient shooter.
that;s because i wanted to be. i read a couple of books n shot lots.
i'm good at this but the training had nothing to do with it.
i just work hard at shooting well, which includes shooting safely.
training is unnecessary for people who are willing to study independently

 

[Frank Ettin]

Keep in mind that there is another incentive going on here that has nothing to do with safety or proficiency...it has to do with money (as a few others have noted)....

Phooey!

1. You claimed to be an instructor (post 8):

   ...I've shot competitively for 10 years & been an instructor for five years. I never took a safety class or got any formal training....

   Of course you've declined to answer when repeatedly asked what you teach, where you teach and what your qualifications are.
   
   
2. You're also making assumptions again. For example, in my case, as I pointed out in post 97:

   ...I made my fortune practicing law. In all the years I've help teach people to shoot I've never asked for, or received, a penny. The folks I work with now are all professional who make, or have made, their money in various ways (and have all had multiple classes at schools like Gunsite and Front Sight). We teach for free. Our class fees cover our expenses (like range fees, the ammunition, which we supply, and the books we give the students), and we receive no compensation....

   
   
3. In any case, I know of no one who is getting rich teaching people to shoot.

...To a firearms instructor, NO ONE should touch a gun without professional training, or else they'll shoot themselves & everyone around them. (Pay me or take your chances)....

Holy strawman, Batman. Absolutely no one has said anything remotely like that.

Your arguments are so specious that you must resort to misrepresenting the positions taken by others.

 

[revolversrbetter]

Have you taken your concerns to the range master or on-hand range officers and if so was the situation handled satisfactorily at the time?

Yes, I have taken my concerns to the range master and no they were not handled satisfactorily in my opinion. This is a large outdoor range in a very large regional park. The rifle section of the range has 50 shooting stations with one RO walking up and down both the rifle range and the adjacent pistol range. In addition, there is one overseer in a control tower looking over both the rifle range and the pistol range.

When I expressed my concerns, the response was one of agreement and mutual frustration and "we'll have to watch for that." However, a muzzle sweep is a momentary event difficult for an RO to catch while walking back and forth along the 100 yard distance of all of the shooting stations. Also, I was not comfortable trying to address the issue with the different individuals personally because of the noise and hearing protection and obvious group dynamics and with loaded weapons on the bench. After switching stations on a number of occasions, I just stopped going back.

One thing I can confidently report is that time spent at the range today is different than it was in 1996 or even 2006. I would prefer that the people that make it different, in a negative way that is detrimental to safety, stay away from guns, especially magazine-fed ARs and AKs.