It Only Takes 5 Hours To Be A Gun Expert?

Recently a member asked me this question:Tim,
Question for you: I am a huge gun advocate. It is my understanding that people who have never even handled a gun can take the 5 hour class and be licensed in 3 states. These people will have no hands on training, no understanding or what type of gun they should carry, and so much more. This really seems odd to me. The results of such an approach seem to be playing right in to the hands of the anti-gun idiots. Thoughts?
Kevin

Hello Kevin,

You bring up an excellent point. First, I’ll say that I agree with you 100%. 5 hours of classroom training is not enough training. This is what happens when government officials try to regulate common sense and good decisions. How much training do I think is enough? It’s different for every beginner. Some people who are new to guns will have an innate ability to quickly learn safe handling and deployment skills. While, on the other hand, some people who are new to guns will take weeks or maybe months of training until they develop the same skills.

If you believe, like I do, that owning a firearm is a right and not a privilege, then it only makes sense that our beloved government officials should completely stay out of defining what constitutes sufficient training. When state officials say, “5 hours of training is all you need”… well, this gives a LOT of people a false sense of security. Because you and I both know that 5 hours is not enough.

As difficult as this may be to digest, I believe that the only way to solve this dilemma is to trust responsible individuals to get the correct amount of training on their own. In fact, many states already operate this way! Arizona, New Hampshire, Alaska and soon Utah have absolutely zero government mandated training requirements.

Now many people will say, “Tim, you’re crazy! If we have no training requirements, then no one will get trained.” I beg to differ. Some of the best firearms and self-defense training facilites in our country are located in the very states that do NOT have minimum training requirements. This is because responsibly armed citizens understand the gravity of their decision to be responsibly armed and they will seek the amount of training that is right for them. The irresponsibly armed citizens will do what they’ll do whether or not there are government mandated minimum requirements.

So… the bottom line is that the ONLY thing that these ridiculous 5-hour, minimum training requirements do is give a false sense of proper training to responsibly armed citizens who’d otherwise pursue MORE and BETTER training if they didn’t have the government telling them what to do.

“A society that doesn’t trust its upstanding citizens to act responsibly will turn into a society of irresponsible citizens.”

Stay safe,

Tim Schmidt
President and Founder
USCCA

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