So, the other day I was finishing up a set of ass cheek squeezes (my physical therapist calls them “gluteal contractions”), when the doorbell rang. Oh, joy! Lunch is served! After pacifying Ike and Tina (Why is it that doorbells drive dogs insane?), I happily greeted the delivery dude, who couldn’t hand over my hot and sour soup quite fast enough. Nothing justifies a temporary discontinuation of ass cheek squeezes quite like piping hot, hot and sour soup.
I didn’t exactly snatch but eagerly received my bag of lunchie munchies and was leaning head-first into a spasm of gluttonous fury, when the delivery dude interjected, “Hey, mind if I ask you something?”
Hmm. Piping hot, hot and sour soup… Random, potentially personal interrogation. Food… Questions… No brainer. Why yes! I do actually mind, sir. But by then he had already asked, “What’s that logo on your shirt? The logo was this one:
Okay, fine. This time — for this topic only — I will forgive your heinous interruption of my highly-anticipated meal, Mr. Inquisitive Delivery Dude. I gave him the long and short of my involvement with Rangemaster and firearms training in general, and what’d’ya know! Turns out he’s a gun dude. A very enthusiastic young gun dude, who was super-excited to meet a kindred spirit. In fact, he was SO super-excited that he swept himself around, gave me his strong-side hip, yanked up the hem of his shirt, started diving with his gun hand, and almost did the unthinkable.
Generally speaking, my fervent policy on such events is, “Hey dude, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” That’s especially true now that I’ve only got one good leg and far fewer avoidance options. But in this case, I recognized that even though he was about to do something idiotic, he didn’t have any real intent to harm me. So I calmly blocked his arm from rising any farther and said, “No need to take it out of the holster. I can see it just fine from there.” OMG, dude, seriously, don’t effing draw down on me. At best, that’s rude. At worst, it could be perceived as threatening, in which case the proverbial excrement would have swiftly hit the fan.
As the temperature came down a few notches (both on our interaction and on my soup), I politely explained to him the potential dangers of whipping out one’s equipment unexpectedly. I soon learned that he “grew up around guns” and felt totally comfortable handling them. He apologized for “startling me.” I guess he assumed I was less comfortable with guns than he was.
Thanks to this guy’s natural comfort with guns, he hadn’t been in much of a hurry to get any training before going armed. He was a Mississippi resident; and in Mississippi, training isn’t required unless you want an “enhanced” permit (topic for another post). Instead, all you have do to score yourself a Magnolia State carry permit is pay a hundred bucks and not be a minor, a psycho, a drunk, a drug addict, a felon, or a fugitive. So, regardless of the tactical soundness of the slick, shiny, smooth (and therefore slippery) grips on his Beretta 92, Delivery Dude was legally armed while lacking even the mere modicum of knowledge required to resist muzzling me on my own front porch.
Herein lies my beef with so-called “Constitutional Carry” (although I realize Mississippi isn’t technically a Constitutional carry state). I’ve been on the fence and pretty silent on this issue for quite a while. I was afraid that my initial reservations were treasonous to gun rights. But then, whenever I have an encounter like the one with Mr. Delivery Dude, I’m reminded of how quickly things can go south when armed citizens forego even basic, introductory-level training on the legal and practical precepts of defensive carry.
Training is important. I would argue it’s indispensable. But does that mean the government should mandate it? Hell, food is indispensable too (especially hot and sour soup), but there’s no law forcing us all to eat. Eh, that argument doesn’t fly. With food, the only potential “victim” is oneself. With firearms, however, there are dozens of potential victims floating around at any given moment.
Then there’s the argument that the firearms instructors are against Constitutional carry because it hurts their bottom line. Touché. But then again, this is capitalism. Everything affects somebody’s bottom line somewhere. So to me, that’s not really a strong argument either.
Then there’s the purist argument: The Bill of Rights explicitly deems it permissible to go armed, so no government regulation can ever stand in the way for any reason. That sounds lofty and righteous and chest thumpy, but it’s not terribly realistic. Truth be told, all the Amendments have limits, whether you agree with the scope of those limits or not. It’s a little naive to think any right is utterly absolute. One commentator snappily analogized, “Do you need a permission slip from the government to speak freely?” Short answer: Uh, yes. In some instances, you most certainly do. It’s called an assembly permit. Here’s how you get one in my hood, for example. Operative word: permit. What am I missing?
While I agree 100% with Constitutional ownership, I’m leaning against Constitutional carry. Yes, I know it says “keep and bear arms,” but still. Delivery Dude’s myopic dearth of training almost landed him a pickle. And of course it takes two to tango. For my own part, if I hadn’t had any training, I might have reacted very differently to his sudden reach for his firearm. The training I’m talking about really doesn’t have much to do with marksmanship. It has more to do with situational awareness, social fluency (what the legendary Southnarc calls “thin-slicing”), and full appreciation of the nuances of lawful self-defense. I just don’t think a few hours of education is too high a price for the power of life and death.
That being said, we all have the power of life and death anyway. I could stab somebody in the neck with a fountain pen in self-defense right now, and I wouldn’t need a permit to do it legally. Is this an artificial line I’m drawing?
I also know there are people and places that are vastly different from me and mine — different beyond my ability to even fathom. I don’t wake up thinking about grizzly bears or coyotes. I don’t kill my meals. Instead I get prosthetic hips and make people deliver hot and sour soup to my house. What about those folks who hunt on a daily basis, not because it’s fun or therapeutic but because it’s dinner time? Should those folks have to find and take a class somewhere and show the government a piece of paper before they can eat? And what about the many other people and situations that would never occur to me because my limited exposure only allows me to think in terms of clichés like fending off grizzly bears?
And then there’s the Big Brother theory. What if these relatively modest hoops were later tightened to the point where we couldn’t jump through them? After all, I’ve heard tell of a not-so-faraway time when black folks were perfectly “free to vote” — as long as they knew “What words are required by law to be on all coins and paper currency of the U.S.” Or as long as they could recount the Constitution’s take on “the suspension of the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.” And as long as they could answer 20 or so other questions correctly. On the fly. Without Google.
Damn it. See, just when I thought I had made up my mind, now I’m back on the fence again.
With great power comes great responsibility? Anyway, just wanted to mention “thin slicing”… I may be wrong but I think that term was coined by Malcolm Gladwell in one of his books.
A thousand apologies to all you Beretta disciples and to the dearly departed Mr. Beretta himself for my original misspelling of his name. I’ve fixed it now, thanks to a buddy who clued me in to my grievous blunder. Please resist the temptation to tar and feather me!
There are people that like Berettas?
(Ducks, runs for cover)
Turns out I already wrote about mandatory training, first at Black Man with A Gun: http://blackmanwithagun.com/mandatory-training (pictures are missing)
And a slightly edited version (with pics) of the same at Ammoland: http://www.ammoland.com/2014/06/mandatory-firearms-training/#axzz3cZVxVPtL
I still might revisit the topic, vis-a-vis this comversation. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks!
Every time an idiot with a gun does something stupid with a gun in public it is a black eye and setback for us all. That said, I’m torn on the idea of mandatory training for constitutional carry.
Yup. My sentiments exactly.
I think there are two prime considerations here regarding mandatory training. The first question is, “is it constitutional?” I know that there is case law (including Heller) which state that you can restrict the exercise of a right. But I personally believe it is an infringement on a natural, civil right to require any sort of training, testing, or licensing (see poll testing example above). The fact that irresponsible exercise of that right may cause a risk to the public is immaterial. We already have laws in place to punish negligent or criminal acts with a firearm. Mandated training and licensing are tools intended to prevent said negligence and crime before the fact.
Which brings up the second question, “does it work?” As a previous commenter noted, I don’t believe that you can find any correlation (much less causation) in the rates of gun accidents, negligence, or crime in states with stricter training requirements versus relaxed or no training requirements. With the variety of state gun laws in this country, it seems we have the perfect lab to discern their effectiveness, and at best I don’t think you can find sufficient evidence to come to a conclusion either way.
So personally, I have to come down pretty hard against the idea of mandatory training (and I’m an instructor myself). To restrict the free exercise of a civil right when you can’t even demonstrate that the law will provide the desired effect is a no-go in my book. A responsible person will be a responsible person whether or not they are mandated to take a training class. Likewise, an irresponsible person will likely remain irresponsible even if they are mandated to take a training class.
But I believe there is a more positive solution to the mandatory training conundrum. Rather than setting a negative barrier to keeping and bearing, how about a positive incentive? I propose a tax incentive…a deduction or a credit…for attending professional firearms training. Go take a class at Gunsite, Thunder Ranch, or Rangemaster? Write it off of your taxes! Of course, gun control types would never go for that, since actually incentivizing responsibly armed citizens is not their aim.
(BTW…I think you might have gotten me started on my next article for Blackmanwithagun.com. Thanks, Tiffany!)
Nice!!! Send us a link once you post the article! 🙂
The most important argument to me is that we shouldn’t have tests and licenses on constitutional rights. I was prepared to use literacy tests as an argument before I got to that part of your post,
As a practical matter, we’ve got a lot of states that don’t require training, and I’m unaware of serious problems or a different rate of problems compared to states that require training, or require more training. And mandatory training isn’t the same as voluntary training–The average quality of both students and instructors is likely lower.
All good points. I dunno. Still on the fence. I only have anecdotal evidence (no official numbers), but I do know of untrained or poorly trained people doing stupid things that hurt or killed people, and I don’t know many (actually can’t think of any) people with quality training who have found themselves in those situations. But of course, I’m sure such people do exist. There will always be well-trained idiots, and no amount of government regulation can stop that. Sigh…
I can say, as someone who lives in a mandatory training state, that it’s about as bad as you would expect.
A qualified class (e.g. NRA basic pistol) typically runs around $100, takes over 8 hours, and doesn’t cover enough for someone who plans to carry 18×7. Depending on the instructor, they may not realize that, and so not even bother to seek further training.
You can’t fix ignorant by forcing training, and you can’t fix stupid at all.
Sad but true. Don’t get me started on the NRA basic class…
I read about a study saying that being accepted to Harvard is almost as good a predictor of future success as graduating from Harvard, even for those who don’t go or don’t graduate. Similarly the kind of person who seeks out a Rangemaster (or Farnham, or Ayoob, or…) class is probably less likely to do stupid things with a gun–even before they take the training.
Another big issue is the quality of mandatory instructors. I sat through 2 different mandatory CCW classes in the early years of Ohio’s CCW law, Neither instructor was stellar, and neither curriculum would have done anything to prevent your delivery situation.
Oh yes… Crappy instructors deserve their own separate post… or book… or library…
Hmmm. Reminds me of a time when I was young and hitchhiking and the guy who picked me up said something to the effect of “I never worry when I pick up hitchhikers, because…” and whips out a .45 from under the seat.
Flashed on the thought that I was going to end up in a shallow grave in the desert, and then he turns it butt first and hands it to me, saying “Check it out, man!”
Exactly!
It seems to me eminently reasonable to believe two seemingly contradictory things simultaneously:
1) It is, or of a right ought to be, entirely legal to carry a firearm upon one’s person without prior permitting or testing.
2) Anyone who does so without some nontrivial training is a dangerous jackass.
This also summarizes my opinion on most 1st amendment “edge cases”.
Can I quote you next time dude delivers food to my house? 🙂
Yes. 🙂
I would add to Lupis42’s No. 2 above that with such rights we have the responsibility to ourselves and others to exercise those rights in a responsible manner that does not bring harm to ourselves or innocent bystanders thus the need for training.
Amen!