Thoughts on people who claim "Only people who are formally trained should be able to own a firearm"?

That is correct for those certain people. There are blind people that see much less though.

 

The right of Gun ownership is the greatest paradox in modern American society. If Peter Parker’s uncle is correct, “with great power comes great responsibility “. If the republicans are right, personal responsibility is an essential quality of the citizen.​

We all seem to agree about the right, and yet totally fall to pieces about the responsibility. Most of us have received some firearms training and mentorship. Most responsible gun owners are highly aware of the grave consequences and liability of the misuse of their firearms.

Yet we can’t seem to find our way to a workable solution to individual, local, non-governmental firearms training. The well regulated militia is a local construct, not a federal mandate. There are NRA hunter-safety courses, firearms instructors, knowledgeable family members and friends. There are also criminals, bad actors, and internet trolls out there, in addition to the the loyal opposition that is afraid of guns. We better get busy.

 

Legally blind doesn’t mean a person can’t see; it just means their corrected vision is blurrier than some arbitrary number (maybe 20/200, I’m not sure) or that their field of view is narrower than some arbitrary number.

It is entirely feasible to use a gun safely and effectively in self-defense with 20/200 (or worse) vision, especially at home. It probably precludes 25-yard shots, but an across-the-room shot at a violent home invader, or a near-contact shot against a person trying to abduct or sexually assault them, is easily do-able.

 

The idea misses the point of an armed body politic. The arms serve as a final veto by force against tyranny, from within or without. Denying a citizen the right to keep and bear arms should receive the same level of scrutiny as denying the right to vote.

Every other benefit of an armed body politic is ancillary to that primary purpose.

 

Funny how often the people who believe in this and other restrictions and roadblocks to exercise of the 2nd Amendment are also the people who get upset about having to show an ID to vote, calling it "voter suppression".

 

The “training “ would be like showing “good cause” - your’s will never be adequate

 

My experience has been that all the firearms safety you need to know can be taught in five minutes or not at all. If you don’t grasp the 4 rules in that time you never will.

I have never purchased a brand new firearm that didn’t come with an instruction manual and most firearms companies will send you one for free. As was stated up thread, if the shooter didn’t take the basic precaution of reading that manual before loading the firearm all the safety in the world wouldn’t have sunk in.

Several states require absolutely no training or demonstration of competency what so ever. You do not even have to demonstrate that you have ever even fired a gun before being issued a permit. All you have to do is pay the fee and submit to a background check and you walk out the door legal to carry a concealed firearm.

So, if state mandated training is so important to the safety of the gun carrying public why don’t we have disproportionately higher firearms accident (not willful negligence or criminal misuse but accidents) rates in those states?

 

My primary quibble with that list is that it mixes some universal rules (I, II, IV, VI, which are the fundamental Four Rules of gun safety) with some rules that are strictly “while hunting only” (e.g., V), or even “while hunting with long guns only” (VII, unless you draw your holstered revolver, unload and clear it, and reholster it every time you have to step over a ditch, then draw it again, reload it, and reholster it after you step).

For defensive guns kept at home in a safe, V and IX are not applicable as written (“secured from access by children and careless adults” and “stored in a separate place from the ammo so they can’t be accessed quickly” are separate concepts, and only one of them is praiseworthy if you live in a home with a safe).

My state has a “hunting oriented” list like that in hunting classes, but it’s not the rules you’ll get in the carry licensure class. Unfortunately, the prohibitionists sometimes cite hunting-only rules as generally applicable to gun ownership in the home, which is where D.C.’s “guns and ammo must be stored separately at home” law came from.

 

It sounds nice until the gears start to turn. Why would anybody buy anything they don’t know how to use? Why would somebody blindly vote for a candidate they know nothing about? Why would somebody run their mouth when they are uninformed on a topic. People do it all the time. Just watch some new boat owner try to launch his boat, look at who is in politics, and who put them in office. If they can excercise other unalienable rights without certification of competency then why should we suddenly want to certify one? Oh...right, one group wants to run the world and can’t do it their way if we can enforce freedom against tyranny.

 

Yes, the pen is mightier (and deadlier) than the sword.

 

Very well said

 

Rhode Island has a similar requirement. A hunter safety course to obtain a hunting license, a blue card to buy a hand gun. Not training, although classes are available. It’s basically a test to see if one knows the rules of safety and basic laws.
Some private gun clubs require qualifying with a hand gun for membership. The one belonged requirement were basic as to a demonstration of safety and use, if you could aim and hit the target at 50’ good.
Driving a car requires driver training in most if not all states and passing a written and driving test.
Doing work that may impact others safety often requires training and licensing. Demonstration of knowledge of codes and applications.
The right to carry a firearm and to self defense carries responsibilities same as driving a car or preforming work or activities that impact others. IMO society has a right to establish rules and regulations that enforce that responsibility. The 2nd gives us rights, unfortunately it doesn’t guarantee responsible ownership or use.
Seems there are extremes in both directions.

 

Then the argument could be made that like with driving, as long as your firearm never left your private property, you would not need formal training. Drivers education is not required to drive, only to get a license to drive. Many states already require some form of formal education to get a license. Hunter's Safety is required in most states to get a hunting license. In many states, one needs some from of formal training in order to get a CWC license. Having helped with Hunter's Safety off and on for over 30 years, I strongly support it. The incidence of hunting accidents has substantially dropped since it's requirement. Most of us had fathers/grandfathers as mentors in our youth to help with informal training. Many times they gave us their same bad habits, but at least they showed us the basic operation of firearms and how to handle them with relative safety. Not so much anymore. Seems that almost 50% of our students in the last two decades come to class with mom, who has never owned/fired a firearm.

No, I don't think that one needs to be formally trained in order to own a firearm. I do tho, believe that it stills needs to be required when obtaining a hunting license.

 

Getting training is an excellent idea.
Requiring training is not. It has been abused as a way to setup a roadblock to gun ownership. (there's only three certified instructors in the state and they hold their class during daytime in the middle of the week.)
If anyone proposes this idea, hit them up for a contribution to the NRA towards their training efforts.

 

I have REALLY mixed feelings about this subject.

I FIRMLY believe in the RTKABA !!

I also was a cop and saw so many incidents of truly BAD & horrific gun handling and shooting that it clouds my other belief [ RTKABA ].

And many of the bad gun handling was by officers who were trained,so you can see why "training" alone is not the issue.

As a officer I underwent 2 weeks of firearms training [ and yes I was a hunter & pistol owner prior to being a cop ].

I then became a firearms instructor for my agency = THE worst few years as an LEO that I spent !.

So ,maybe you can see why I am torn about the OP's subject.

And HELL YEA the same goes for driving.

ALL get training and so many abuse that non right [ privilege ] that ignoring that FACT is wrong.

So ,where does that leave us ??,good question.

 

The second amendment doesn't mention anything about proper training. Simple enough answer to the required training thing. I'll quit with that statement as there has already plenty of discussion about being a safe and responsible gun owner

 

What "expert" told you that?

Rifle and Shotgun Merit Badges are VERY popular in Scouting.

 

Regardless of the views expressed here how many would hand their six old a loaded gun. Lots and lots of six year old adults in this society.

 

What makes you think that firearm instructors would even be allowed to offer their services to the public?

What makes you think that the general public would be allowed to seek out firearms training?

What makes you think that anyone who did not meet the approval of those in power would have access to firearms training?

 

I am struck this morning by some similarities between gun crime/ND instances and super-spreader outbreaks of COVID-19. The Atlantic monthly has an article speaking to the randomness of super-spreader outbreaks of the virus. Transmission of the virus isn’t linear, predictable, or uniform. Its random and prone to isolated superspeader incidents. This makes top-down attempts at control through lock downs inefficient and insufficient.

Top-down approaches to gun crime and violence have a similar inefficiency and insufficiency. Gun crime has a similar non-linear, random, clustering aspect to it.

In both cases, we need to do a better job of personal responsibility and self-policing. We need to promote responsible gun ownership and local-based education and training. We need to promote responsible mask-wearing and social distancing . These bottom-up methods of addressing issues of safety are the best ways of a free people exercising rights in a responsible way.

 

Adding another layer of control will not fix stupid nor will it stop those intent on causing harm to other people.
I would say I have been training with one type of firearm or another my whole life. I am trained enough and not done anything stupid.
At least not yet.

 

In my years of teaching Hunter safety, I have found that two things contribute the most to hunting accidents. Ignorance and excitement/adrenaline. While our course does not have enough time to deal with the latter, the former, ignorance, is heavily covered. Ignorance of the 4 rules of gun safety, the ignorance of bullet ballistics and the ignorance of not positively identifying your game. While it is true that when sometimes during the excitement of the hunt, folks tend to "forget" some gun safety rules, we hope that the training may embed auto responses. Excitement is not a negative attribute...it is why most of us hunt. We just need to learn how to control it. I', sure that it is a big influence on folks encountering their first SD/HD event, whether it is real or not. Some things folks don't think of on their own. I bird hunt quite a bot with pointers and take a lot of friends, relatives and their friends along on hunts. My pet peeve is those folks that take their safeties off as soon as a dog takes a point. They then walk up to the dog with the gun off safe and their finger on the trigger in anticipation of a bird flushing. They don't automatically think about it being a false point or the bird may be running or the wind may have the dog pointing the wrong spot. They don;t think bout how they are walking without looking where they are going and may step into a hole and fall. They don't think about the bird flushing behind or off to the side and how they will sweep a fellow hunter with the gun off safe and their finger on the trigger. Once, most are informed of the risks and shown how waiting till the bird flushes and is identified as a safe and legal target, makes little impact on how fast they get on the bird. Training does fix a lot.

 

No one is saying training is bad. What people are saying is Government Mandated Training is a REALLY bad idea.