Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Hellerific

Heller leads to more registration:
The District of Columbia Council passed more regulations for gun owners Tuesday, months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the city's 32-year-old handgun ban.

Among other things, the bill requires gun owners to register their weapons every three years and receive training by a certified firearms instructor.

"This bill will be, I think, one of the most progressive registration laws in the country," Council member Phil Mendelson said.
"Progressive."  Yeah.

So much for the vaunted Heller decision.

I agree that people should have firearm's training.  If this means that a person grew up in a family of experienced gun owners and learned through years of teaching by other family members, that's fine.  Someone coming in from outside the "gun culture" should seek out training.  It's just a good idea.

But that training must not be legally mandated.  To do so means that it is not a right--it is a privilege granted by the state.  The state will decide when and if you may gain such training, and the state will decide if your training is sufficient before it grants you the privilege of possessing the means for basic survival against a violent attack.

Your life=state mandated "training."  Doesn't anyone else find that repugnant?

3 comments:

  1. I actually have no problem with mandated training. The problem that I have with this is that it is specifically intended to be a deterrent to gun ownership. The mandated training is not provided free of charge and will undoubtedly be egregiously difficult.

    As I said, I have no problem with mandatory training and I think we should push for it. My vision of the mandated training would begin in elementary school with the "Eddie Eagle Gunsafe" program in each grade. Beginning in about 4th grade, the four rules of gun safety should be required. Middle school mandatory training should include a hunter's safety course and proper handling and operation of long guns. At this point, electives in marksmanship using air rifles and moving up to .22 caliber rifles and small shotguns should be offered.

    In High school, proper handling and operation of handguns should be mandatory as well as continuing training on rifle marksmanship, the legalities and ramifications of self defense. Electives would include handgun marksmanship, reloading and ballistics, and inter mural teams for high powered rifle, skeet/trap/sporting clays, Olympic shooting events, IDPA/USPSA style practical shooting, cowboy action shooting etc.

    The basics should be mandatory for everyone, whether their parents ever intend for them to own firearms or not. The required classes should be offered at reasonable or no cost at state subsidized vo-techs for people who graduated from high school before the mandatory training went into effect and for immigrants.

    All that should be required in each of the 50 states to certify that one is properly trained is to show a high school diploma dated after implementation of the training, or a certificate from the vo-tech certifying the training was completed.

    If everyone is trained in the basics, the excuse about untrained people flies out the window. Plus I firmly believe that we would see a significant reduction in accidental/negligent shootings as well as the pleasant side effect of untold numbers of new shooters being introduced to the sports.

    Of course I doubt that it would ever pass because the anti-s will scream that we're training kids to be killers and the media would be non-stop with "the sky is falling propaganda".

    Anyway, that was just a really, really long way of saying that I fully support mandatory training as long as it is not used as a deterrent (either through cost or inconvenience) to gun ownership and is not used as a de-facto gun owner registration scheme.

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  2. Except that the state will always, always use it as an obstacle and a deterrent.

    I would never mandate firearms training against the wishes of individuals and parents, but I would have no problem with optional "electives" being available.

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  3. I agree with Alan on this one. There should be NO mandated training at all...perhaps such training should be strongly encouraged on the elementary school level and beyond, but never mandatory.

    But this is not the only problem with the new D.C. law. Guns must be re-registered every 3 years and gun owners must get another background check every 6 years.

    Government simply needs to get the hell out of the way and leave the citizens alone.

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