An argument for training requirements?

[ILoveCats]

You've probably all seen this horrible story, I'm sure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/12/30/toddler-accidentally-shots-and-kills-his-mother-in-idaho-wal-mart-police-say/?postshare=2461420006505514

I keep swinging back and forth on this issue of training mandates.  I notice Idaho's training requirements are pretty lax compared to many other states.  The County Sheriff "may" require various types of proof of proficiency, which can include a hunter safety course completed at some point in the applicant's life.   

[mott555]

I find it very hard to support mandatory training, unless it's integrated into middle school or something, or cheap and very easy to schedule. I think things could be done to encourage training though, like perhaps greatly reducing the state fees for applying for a CCW if you have proof of additional training.

That was definitely a tragedy, and based on some news articles I've seen the lefties are already preparing to attack the NRA over it.

[depserv]

I don't know if training would have prevented this tragedy; if common sense was not enough for her to keep her gun away from her child I doubt training would have done the trick either. 

Mandatory training should not be required to exercise a Constitutional right.  Gun safety should be taught in public schools, and it would be, if the curriculum was not under the control of liberal bigots.   

If you look at the article and read the responses you see liberal bigots gloating about it.  That's incentive for all of us to be safe and to get the word out about how to be safe.   

[mott555]

If you look at the article and read the responses you see liberal bigots gloating about it. 

Wow, the responses are both sickening and ignorant. Some are happy at the chance to use this tragedy to push "real gun reform" and others are saying it should be illegal to carry a firearm loaded with the safety off (inb4 Glock fans start ranting about how stupid safeties are).

[RedBird]

I don't know if training would have prevented this tragedy; if common sense was not enough for her to keep her gun away from her child I doubt training would have done the trick either. 

I agree. I am not sure if training would have stopped this tragedy but it certainly could have. Firearm safety is like anything else. It must be taught, learned, and reinforced before it becomes a habit. Additional training or any training at all may have helped to fill in the gaps and saved this woman's life.

That being said, we are all responsible for our own safety and as other have already said, training should not be required to exercise a Constitutional right.

[DR4NRA]

Wow, the responses are both sickening and ignorant. Some are happy at the chance to use this tragedy to push "real gun reform" and others are saying it should be illegal to carry a firearm loaded with the safety off (inb4 Glock fans start ranting about how stupid safeties are).

Been known to carry a cocked and locked 1911, also a glock 26, or a 357 mag revolver, so which is the safest?

[ILoveCats]

Good points.   Part of me wants to believe the old saying that, "you can't fix stupid".  To paraphrase in this context... you can't train away stupid.   I've seen some people sent off to management or leadership training in a work environment and shook my head, realizing that it was going to be a waste of time and money.  They were inherently unlikable people and bad leaders with no emotional intelligence.  No amount of "training" was going to make people want to follow them.

On the other hand I've seen fair to middlin' managers - and very good managers - go off to such training, and come back even better.  Sometimes much better.  Training can and does help, so long as you have at least two brain cells to rub together in the first place. 

Management and leadership are really soft and squishy subject areas to teach, yet it can be done.  Gun safety is much more tangible and absolute; if you follow just a few rules and never, ever break them, you're 100% guaranteed to never have an accident.  That's actually pretty amazing when you think about it.  Don't you wish the same were true of driving your car; that if you followed the driver's manual 100% of the time you'd have zero chance of having an accident, even on an icy road?  And the orthodox (Jeff Cooper) gun safety rules are even beautiful in the fact that they have levels of redundancy too.

It's pretty hard to ignore those fact in the context of a policy discussion about training.  A tiny investment in training can yield huge, life-long results, even for people of marginal intelligence.

[farmerbob]

I don't know the circumstances of this tragedy but, I personally can't see a 2yr. old having the hand strength to pull a 5 pound double action trigger.

This makes a strong argument for on body carry.

[mott555]

I don't know the circumstances of this tragedy but, I personally can't see a 2yr. old having the hand strength to pull a 5 pound double action trigger.

This was my thought too. A 2 year old being able to pull the trigger AND lucky enough to be pointing it in a lethal direction? Seems a bit unlikely. Of course the article doesn't say what kind of firearm it was, could have been a cocked 1911 .45 with the safety off for all we know.

[Dan W]

Does "a well regulated militia" with the definition of "well regulated" meaning well trained, enter into the modern practice of the second amendment?

I am not in favor of mandatory training, but have often pondered the result if SCOTUS ever ruled on this part of the RKBA

[FarmerRick]

One horribly sad accident/ND does not make the case for changing laws.

I prefer South Dakota's training requirement for a concealed carry permit over any other, except maybe Vermont.

Again, the question can be asked: "what other Constitutional Right has training requirements?"

[farmerbob]

It looks to me like the mother was responsible for her own death, a toddler should never have access to a loaded firearm, maybe a gun in a purse in a shopping cart with a child is unacceptable.

This is the exact reason I never could carry in a coat pocket, usually when you go inside whether a restaurant, someone's house or even a store we have a tendency to take the coat off, leaving us not in control of our gun, carrying in a purse I believe is much like this, in many ways worse. If you are going to carry, you need to be in control of your gun at all times or leave it locked up at home.(just my opinions)


I am also a big fan of South Dakota CC laws.

[JTH]

Mandatory training should not be required to exercise a Constitutional right. 

That's it, right there.

There is a BIG difference between "It is a really good idea to get training before doing this" and "You are required to get training before doing this."

And as several people have said:  "You can't fix stupid."

You can mitigate mistakes, you can reduce errors, but you can't fix stupid.  The four rules of safe gun handling are fantastic, really, because to injure someone you have to break SEVERAL simultaneously.  Extra layers of safety are built in...

....which won't stop idiots from managing it anyway. 

Mandatory training won't help that, because anything made "mandatory" will be along the lines of the required curriculum for the state CCW class, which pours huge amount of info onto students that really don't help much in terms of building safe, effective gun handling habits.

(Unless someone teaches a 3-day CCW course that I don't know about, which is about the only way to actually do all the NE CCW curriculum in a fashion that would allow students to learn good safe gun handling habits and practice handgun skills while also learning the legal aspects of CCW.)

On an unrelated note, did you know that there are over 28,500 chainsaw injuries every year, and the research agrees that: "The cause of most injuries can be traced to improper use of the saw or poor judgment on part of the operator."

Amazing how that works. 

Training would only help one of those reasons.

(Training might have taught the woman to have her pistol in a holster in a dedicated carry purse, so a 2-year-old couldn't have gotten to the trigger. But she might have ignored it anyway. Then again, while I agree that you shouldn't have required training before carrying concealed, I think people are stupid if they don't GET training before carrying concealed.  Especially the ones who think they "already know enough" to do so. )

[mott555]

This article has a little more info:

http://news.yahoo.com/idaho-gun-tragedy-does-matter-mother-took-precautions-174446294.html

[DR4NRA]

Mott taken from the article quoted:

It’s against the law in Idaho to carry a loaded concealed gun.

This I do believe is incorrect.

[farmerbob]

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/12/224777-tragedy-strikes-walmart-2-year-old-reaches-mothers-purse-discharges-handgun/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_content=conservativedaily&utm_campaign=Crime

I believe the 4 rules of gun safety become irrelevant when your gun falls into incompetent hands. Education, training and safety are key factors, hence keeping control of ones firearm is a safety issue, all kids should be educated and trained how to safely handle a gun starting with the 4 basic rules of gun safety.

Standing around the busy gun counter at Cabela's the day after Christmas, I noticed a lot of adults don't know anything about gun safety, they use the trigger as part of the grips to hold the gun while pointing it at everyone around them.

[DR4NRA]

maybe this will put a little perspective on things. Feel real bad for them all. Ohh and Gramps states it real well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/31/the-inside-story-of-how-an-idaho-toddler-shot-his-mom-at-wal-mart/

[mott555]

Standing around the busy gun counter at Cabela's the day after Christmas, I noticed a lot of adults don't know anything about gun safety, they use the trigger as part of the grips to hold the gun while pointing it at everyone around them.

I made the mistake of going to Scheel's the Saturday before Christmas. I can't count the number of times I had an AR-15 muzzle swept over me by teenagers with their fingers on the trigger.

[ILoveCats]

NBC nightly news led with it as one of their top stories tonight.  It was, all things considered, a fairly agnostic story.  It too portrayed the woman as highly educated, intelligent and very well versed in firearms.  But obviously not well versed enough.  I guess she thought that the purse was some sort of magic device that a kid couldn't open up.

But..... to the point of this thread.   Probably nothing that "more training" would have solved.      I've also seen people leave toddlers in a running car as they unloaded the Walmart groceries, also with tragic results.  You can't train for everything, I guess.  At some point common sense has to come into play.  And how many times have I heard a mother or father say about a kid, "I only turned my back for a second..." when I know full well that it was more than a second and they were yammering on their mobile phone about something pointless and inane instead of minding their toddler.   

There were no indications of what kind of gun it was, so we don't know if there was a safety.

Any bets on whether there will be a lawsuit against the purse manufacturer?

[Kendahl]

Many a woman leaves her purse in the shopping cart and turns her back to pull something off the shelf. This is an open invitation to theft. At the very least, the thief gets her keys, cash and credit/debit cards. If she keeps her gun in the purse, he gets that, too.