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"Elitist bovine scat"? I don't need empirical data. I see these people every single day at work. Try to help them pick out guns. Help them choose a holster. Watch them shoot on the range- and when the opportunity is there, sometimes try to give them some help and/or coaching. Encourage them to get more training. Elitist bovine scat my ass. Current training requirements to get a CCW are woefully inadequate. Imho if you don't see this you have your head in the sand.
I haven't read the entire thread yet, so this may have been covered already.. Finished reading it all the way through now.
I like the idea of more training beyond the simple initial CCW class, but I'm not for MANDATORY training. As several posters have already indicated, the time and money associated with this would preclude many from being able to exercise their Constitutional right to carry. I know many folks who don't yet have their CCW simply because they can't afford the initial cost.
ETA: I've seen many with little/no training and those with lots of training that I won't he anywhere near when they start handling firearms - they just aren't safe. At the same time, I've known many with little or no training at all who were some of the safest people I know in regards to firearms. Training, including additional range time, does not necessarily translate into added safety.
Personally, I'd be horrified to learn that someone lost their life, or the life of a loved one, because they weren't carrying simply for the fact that they hadn't met the recurring training requirement that you're suggesting.
Compromise, as you've written it in your OP ("settle on a middle ground"), is the hallmark of the anti-gun agenda. When they can't force through their gun ban legislation they reach into their bag of tricks and start spouting of the need for "common sense" gun control/limitations. They use emotions to try to get you to agree that these requirements are just "common sense" ways to make the gun owner and their community at large just a little safer. The problem with their "compromise" is that the anti-gunners never have to give up anything, it's always those who believe in and exercise their 2A rights who have to yield ground. Taking a look back over the last 100 years at all of this compromise you can see that the anti-2A folks haven't lost ANYTHING while we've lost a great deal. Every "compromise" brings with it further infringement on our Constitutional right. This incrementalism is eroding the right which our forefathers wisely provided for in their efforts to protect the citizens of this country. As you're aware, the Second Amendment is the right which protects all of the other rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution. This is part of the reason you never hear about having to compromise on those rights. What if we were required to compromise on our right to due process guaranteed under the 5th Amendment? Suppose you weren't entitled to that right until & unless you'd received your regular required training for that right? Sound preposterous? Sure, but it's exactly the same for exercising your 2nd Amendment right.
So, no, I can not endorse such a requirement as additional, regular, REQUIRED training for maintaining ones CCW.
ETA: Just read TheGrey's comment. Beautifully stated!
The one thing I found worrisome when I used to teach firearm classes was how many people wanting to CCW had never fired a gun let alone owned one.
While I understand the viewpoint against "required training" I also see a need to have some basic range time involved with CCW permitting.
I don't really see the connection with more training and ccw as its fairly rare to have a ccw holder to go crazy and shoot everyone up. As is they make you go through enough hoops they can weed out MOST of the idiots, and you can never weed out all of them. That said, I have to admit that IF, and its a big if, we are going to try to do something to curb the crazies and idiots getting firearms, it pretty much has to come from the gun community because its been made clear the libs don't even know the first thing about a gun itself let alone what legislation, if any, would be effective while not cumbersome for the law abiding.
I am all for second amendment rights and choosing liberty with risk over soft tyranny, but I do feel like at some point the gun community needs to come forward with some form of change that will at least help limit the nuts getting guns and somewhat pacify the libs. If not I fear we are going to get full on tyranny forced down our throats. I know many people who aren't gun owners but really don't have anything against guns. However, the fact that these types of mass shootings continue to happen and worse at an ever increasing rate with no ideas put forward at all makes them start drifting more towards the anti gun crowd. The neutral people, I have found, want the gun community to take leadership and as of yet they haven't. I don't know the answer and most ideas to me have seemed to limit rights too much whether it be an unreasonable burden to acquire a gun, lack of due process, unreasonable search and seizure, or whatever. Still, I do think we need to come up with something and take an active, leadership role or people like obama will be entrusted with that role instead by the many people that really don't have a dog in this fight directly.
How much range time is required to Open Carry in Colorado?
How much more training should be required to put a jacket on over your firearm?
Responsible people take responsibility and seek improvement in the skills they want to improve upon. Irresponsible people do not.
I have never seen a successful attempt by any group to legislate responsibility as a requirement.
OP, may I suggest that you take your liberal pro Bernie supporter shooting. Let me know when and where and if I am available, I will show up with a few handguns and some ammunition. I'm sure we would have a good time.
Be safe.
The error in your thinking is that you believe that we can actually pacify the libs without full-on elimination of firearms and our Second Amendment right. You fail to understand the degree of their fanaticism on this matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by tmckay2
Engaging a target @ 50 - 75 yards [LOL]Quote:
Originally Posted by cstone
Since most of the folks who argue this are elitist guilty-feeling white folk who feel bad they're rich and someone else is poor, I fall back on this argument:
"Ok, so should Saturday night specials, guns that cost less than 100 bucks, be outlawed?"
"Of course they should, blah blah blah."
"So, you think poor people have less rights than you do? People who struggle for months to save an additional 75 bucks to get a gun to protect themselves in the ghetto, where it's a hell of a lot more dangerous than your gated community? Their lives and their family's lives don't matter to you? Sure you might be able to afford a 600 dollar gun but they don't have that luxury. You elitist bastard."
Same thing with requiring all sorts of training, etc. If the gov't requires the training, there has to be some sort of subsidy for really poor folks to be able to afford to exercise their rights the same way.
Elitist Lives Matter.
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by cstone
The conversation the OP started this thread with is trying to legislate (force) responsibility into someone. Training or not, the reason why people don't go on crazy shooting sprees comes down to the plain fact we value human life; it is not because shooting someone is illegal. Sure there are people out there that could do a lot better on following the basic safety rules, but how many of us have shared a range with total strangers and everyone leaves without any violence? Beating a dead horse, but how many guns do they estimate are in the US... and how many of them sit as a piece of steel and polymer each day without discharging? We carry and own guns for the off chance we come across the one person that doesn't have that same value and tries to act upon it in our presence. Until some politician can come up with a law that can somehow see into the thoughts of a human [hahhah-no], any new law/requirement will never fix the fact that there are simply bad people out there.
If you think that certain people should be limited in their capacity to conceal a weapon until they have proven themselves, then you are just as bad as the politicians that write rules saying you have to give a valid reason for owning a gun; all the while standing behind your own guns.