The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - A suggestion from a friend on firearms education

Kimio · January 9, 2013, 04:24 PM

I was discussing this with another member of a message board I visit a lot.

I am an advocate of firearms safety and education. Lets face it though, there are many firearms owners out there that simply are not educated enough if at all on proper firearms safety and maintenance.

It was suggested that perhaps a licensing program of some sort would be a decent solution to this dillemma. The idea was that in order to purchase a firearm, you must be certafied as being trained in the basics of gun safety, and know how to properly maintain and handle a specific type of firearm.

This license would not register you as owning a firearm, it simply states that you are trained and officially recognized as being eligible for purchasing that given type of firearm.

I can hear the arguments against this already, one, that this could be abused of course, there are many different schools of thought when it comes to the handleing of a firearm, and determining a blanket course may not be ideal for everyone. Not to mention, this could be a means of registration but of a different sort, that can identify those who would be the greatest threat given (however unlikely) our government decides that they would want to opress us.

Another argument I would imagine would come up is how would this be funded, the start up costs would be astronomical, and I simply left this argument as just a possible suggestion.

He agreed that legislation will not stop crime, but with something as potent as a firearm, he feels that proper training should be mandatory if you want to own one.

There are probably other points that I'm missing, but honestly I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to want everyone to be properly trained in the safe use of a firearm (The law abiding at least). It's part of what differentiates a responsible firearms owner from one that isn't.

What do you think, obviously there is a very fine line that must be walked here if it were ever to be taken seriously, as too little power and enforcement would cause this whole thing to flounder, while too much power being granted and it can easily be abused by the powers that be, that being the government and even more so at the state level (Such as in Chicago, New York, California etc.)

January 9, 2013, 04:24 PM	#1
Kimio Senior Member Join Date: January 2, 2011 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,171	A suggestion from a friend on firearms education I was discussing this with another member of a message board I visit a lot. I am an advocate of firearms safety and education. Lets face it though, there are many firearms owners out there that simply are not educated enough if at all on proper firearms safety and maintenance. It was suggested that perhaps a licensing program of some sort would be a decent solution to this dillemma. The idea was that in order to purchase a firearm, you must be certafied as being trained in the basics of gun safety, and know how to properly maintain and handle a specific type of firearm. This license would not register you as owning a firearm, it simply states that you are trained and officially recognized as being eligible for purchasing that given type of firearm. I can hear the arguments against this already, one, that this could be abused of course, there are many different schools of thought when it comes to the handleing of a firearm, and determining a blanket course may not be ideal for everyone. Not to mention, this could be a means of registration but of a different sort, that can identify those who would be the greatest threat given (however unlikely) our government decides that they would want to opress us. Another argument I would imagine would come up is how would this be funded, the start up costs would be astronomical, and I simply left this argument as just a possible suggestion. He agreed that legislation will not stop crime, but with something as potent as a firearm, he feels that proper training should be mandatory if you want to own one. There are probably other points that I'm missing, but honestly I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to want everyone to be properly trained in the safe use of a firearm (The law abiding at least). It's part of what differentiates a responsible firearms owner from one that isn't. What do you think, obviously there is a very fine line that must be walked here if it were ever to be taken seriously, as too little power and enforcement would cause this whole thing to flounder, while too much power being granted and it can easily be abused by the powers that be, that being the government and even more so at the state level (Such as in Chicago, New York, California etc.)