[JRH6856]

I fully understand the benefits of training, especially for those who regulalry handle firearms and/or carry every day. However, as BigDinFL notes, requiring such training as a condition to own or carry (keep and bear) firearms is a an infringement on a protected right. Encouraging training is fine and is a good idea, but it seems to me that requiring it as precondition is a prohibited infringement and will remain so until the Constitution is amended.

It could be argued that is is within the enumerated powers of Congress to prescribe the level of training that the states are to provide for the militia, leaving it to the states to provide for the actual training. But requiring the training and requiring the states to provide such training would still be an infringement if it were a condition of ownership.

It seems to me that rather then being a condition of firearms ownership, it would need to be a separate requirement. Perhaps it would require Congress to declare that every legal resident (not just a citizen) who exercised his/her right to bear arms becomes, by that act, a member of the militia, and that all members of the militia must be trained by the State of residence in the handling and use of arms. Whether or not the right to keep and bear arms is exercised is strictly voluntary with no precondition except existing criminal or mental health related prohibitions. Keeping (owning) arms would not require training (though it would be encouraged) but bearing (carrying in public) would.

Just a thought.