Rights & Privileges
Avoid The ‘Training Requirement’ Trap
The past couple of years have seen anti-gun state lawmakers and governors picking up on a new and deceptive ploy to discourage gun ownership. Their goal is to make it much more difficult to exercise a constitutionally-protected and enumerated right.
It’s A Right
It’s the “proof-of-training requirement” being added onto legislation in several places, almost always accompanied by what sounds like a perfectly reasonable and logical explanation: “You need driver’s education to get a license to drive.”
There are two things fundamentally wrong with this argument. First, it’s a prelude to requiring a license to own a gun, and second, it creates the impression among too many gullible middle-of-the-road voters that a citizen should jump through such a hoop in order to enjoy his or her right to keep and bear arms.
Translation: Once again, this scheme equates the right to gun ownership with a government-regulated privilege. You will hear this more and more from politicians (those normally with a “D” beside their names) who want it to sound “reasonable” — as in “reasonable gun safety laws” — but it is not reasonable at all. In practical terms, it’s an infringement, and arguing otherwise suggests the proponent needs a refresher course in American Government and plain English.
Compare it to the popular demand for a 10-round limit on magazines for rifles and semi-automatic pistols. Nobody really remembers who cooked that one up, or how the proponents arrived at this arbitrary number, but for many years, the 10-round cartridge limit has become the magic number.
The magazine limit is another one of these reasonable-sounding restrictions until the gun prohibition crowd can come up with something else. “Nobody needs 20 rounds to hunt deer,” they will declare without anyone challenging them by observing: “The Second Amendment is not now, nor was it ever, about deer hunting.” You certainly don’t hear the hosts of Sunday morning news and commentary programs asking about this, either because they also believe the 10-round nonsense or because they’re just plain stupid. There are strong arguments favoring both possibilities!
But the 10-round argument falls apart when one reminds people about Elliot Rodger.
Evil But Legal
Rodger was the 22-year-old Californian who went on a rampage because he couldn’t score a girlfriend and a meaningful relationship. He killed six people on the night of May 23, 2014 before taking his own life.
Some gun control proponents have altered the facts to suggest he shot all his victims, but that’s simply not true. He murdered the first three by stabbing and slashing them in his apartment, then started driving around near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He shot one other male and two females, struck others with his car and wounded several more victims.
Here’s the kicker: He did all of this with three legally purchased handguns (one GLOCK and two SIG SAUERs) — all of which included California’s waiting period and background check — and California-compliant 10-round magazines. So much for the argument 10-rounders somehow lower the carnage. It does clearly demonstrate the fallacy of mandating such limits and the foolishness of people who think this is a good idea. Most of these people have never owned guns, or even fired a gun, yet they assume the authority for dictating gun policy to the rest of us.
This does not deter the true believers behind magazine limits, and remember, they’re the same people now demanding proof-of-training in order to purchase a firearm, which brings us around to another sticking point. This one invariably separates good intentions from bad ones.
Who determines what sort of training is required, and who will be certified to provide it? Will your state recognize a course taught at, say, Gunsite or Thunder Ranch? Can you qualify by just completing a home firearms safety course taught by NRA-certified instructors?
Here’s a dilemma for the certified instructor: You teach the course, but when’s the last time you took the course? Proposals I’ve seen carry no exemption for instructors, which seems asinine at best.
Mandatory Vs. Voluntary
Here’s where the debate gets sticky unless you keep your wits and are prepared. Nobody I know in the firearms community disdains competent instruction.
But there is a vast difference between taking a training course voluntarily and being required by the state to do so in order to buy a firearm. We’re not talking about training to qualify for a carry license, only to purchase a gun. Once such training is required, the right to keep and bear arms becomes a government-regulated privilege and we all know how government will take an inch and then incrementally take the whole mile.
This is where defending the Second Amendment begins. If you are currently represented in Congress or the State Legislature by someone who supports the training requirement, you can contact your representative and try to educate him or her, or you can simply vote them out of office. Of course, voting them out isn’t that simple. You’ve got to recruit a good candidate to challenge the incumbent, or run yourself, and you must be electable; that is, have a well-rounded campaign platform covering such things as education, taxes, inflation, the environment and transportation. Anyone who runs as a “gun rights” candidate will likely have an expensive and failed campaign.
And you must be committed. Case in point: Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, representing her state’s 3rd Congressional District. Her critics say a lot of things but I was able to interview her three years ago after being elected the first time and her campaign was textbook.
She traveled around the huge Third District, attending functions, knocking on doors, meeting people and listening to them while talking about her plans and hopes. Absolutely, Boebert was strong on the Second Amendment, but she was hardly one-dimensional. She was an accomplished small business owner and she understood the people in the district she hoped to represent. Suffice to say, “She was from around here.” Take this for what it’s worth. Find such a candidate, or be such a candidate.
And, keep your eyes and ears open in the process because at some point, guns and the Second Amendment will come up. When it does, be prepared to explain the difference between Rights and Privileges — and never get them confused.
