*Worried about thread shift? You're talking to the King of thread shift
*
Jay, looking back I should have been more careful in specifying governmentally mandated training. There have been several articles posted on this topic here and reports from our allies in states like Texas or Minnesota where training is a condition of acquiring the CCW license.
Jayb, of course your concern is valid and should be every rational person's concern. The situation that you describe (persons unable to operate their weapons) is manifested in law enforcement as well as civilian circles as any graduate of firearms training schools such as TR or LFI (LFI-1's video of "Shorty").
The question we have presented is
HOW to address your sane and logical concern. I believe there is a better way to obtain what we all desire.
Internal controls are better than external. As you probably have seen in law enforcement (my speculation based on your writing style) if someone, oh, say a criminal defendant, is "ordered" whether drug/alcohol counseling or anger management it is not as effective as counseling that a person wishes to pursue. Same applies to firearms training.
The solution is to change the culture. Make gun safety/firearms training the "cool" or "in" thing to do and the culture will drive more and more to do it. Supply creates its own demand, having the trainers available is part of it as well as writing insightful and entertaining reviews of gun camps(one time at gun camp) such has been done here at THR or the brilliant and sage reviews of KSFreeman at The Firing Line.
Governmentally-mandated firearms training defeats this attempted culture shift in two ways. First, it becomes a burden rather than something fun and educational. Second, it becomes limiting in that, as you as a trainer know, that education never ends; the attitude becomes meeting a requirement and ending the training experience. "Well, got my class, I'm done."
Jay, we need you and your experience in any coming push. Never forget this is just my opinion about this narrow topic and I know what cops say about opinions, especially from my kind.
We agree on far more than we disagree; many roads to Enlightenment, we just want the General Assembly to chose the right ones!
You are quite welcome for any hand I had in the Texas-Indiana reciprocity. However, the credit really goes to our friends in Texas who moved the authority from state po-po to the AG and to THRer Graybeard who told me the score in Tejas and what buttons to push.
