Requiring Training Before Owning A Gun is a Threat To The Second Amendment

A question I get a lot is do I believe everyone should be required by law to get some form of firearm training before they can own a gun?

I deeply believe that anyone who owns a gun or plans to buy a gun should to some degree get some training on how to use and operate the gun not only safely but more effectively.

But the question still remains, do I agree with government mandated training before owning a gun?

Absolutely NOT and here is why.

On average, accidental gun deaths account for 1% of total gun-related deaths in the US. That’s roughly 458 accidental gun deaths a year. Firearms don’t even make the Top 10 causes of accidental deaths.

Don’t get me wrong, every one of those deaths are tragic but considering the US has the most guns than any other country in the world and we don’t even rank in the top ten for unintentional gun deaths. That’s actually saying something.

Learning gun safety is not rocket science, it doesn’t require mandated training. You don’t need to be John Wick to be a safe, responsible gun owner.

We could cut that number in half just by teaching people the four rules of gun safety.

1. Treat Every Firearm as if it’s loaded
2. Never Point a gun at anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire
4. Be Sure of your target and what is behind it.

That’s it! You know those four rules and don’t break the and you won’t have any problems. The gun community has been teaching these rules for decades; it’s literally the holy grail of rules for the gun community.

This Ruger SR40 was the first gun I ever bought. However, I knew the 4 rules of gun safety way before I bought it because I spent so much time on YouTube researching what gun I wanted and coming across video after video reminding me about the 4 rules of gun safety to the point it’s permanently implanted in my brain.

By the time I bought the gun, I was already a safe and responsible gun owner thanks to the gun community on YouTube. The same community that the Anti-Gun lobby and social media platforms try to shadow ban and silence.

Bloomberg and his anti-gun group spent 11 million dollars to run a gun control ad during the super bowl.

These so-called Gun-Control Safety groups spend millions to push their gun control agenda, but won’t spend a dime to put out ads about the four rules of gun safety that would literally cut those 458 accidental gun deaths in half?

Say what you want about the NRA, but they at least have an entire program called the Eddie Eagle program dedicated to teaching kids about gun safety.

NSSF, the firearm industry trade association has Project Child Safe which focuses on how to safely store your firearms.

And shameless plug, I even sell my own portable safe which is designed to help you transport your gun safely and securely.

If it was about saving lives for the Anti-Gun Lobby, they’d spend their money on programs to actually teach gun safety or at the bare minimum support gun groups that already do.

But they don’t instead they support bills like HR 127 that requires American to pay for 24 hours of training and purchase an insurance policy from the government at $800 a year.

That’s not about safety, that’s a scheme to generate revenue and make it as hard as possible for regular people to own a gun. We have the RIGHT to bear arms, not the Privilege to bear arms.

When the government requires training before you can exercise a right, they’ve just turned that right into a privilege.

If you don’t have to take a test before you can vote, you shouldn’t be forced to take a test before you can have the means to adequately defend your life.

Especially if you’re poor because the people who will be hurt the most by mandated training will be poor people.

Guns aren’t cheap, so poor people can barely afford to buy a gun in the first place and if anyone needs a gun for protection is poor people because they live in the most dangerous areas in this country,

So, you want to make it even harder on them by forcing them to take off from a job that barely pays enough to cover their basic needs and pay to take a training course? Nah, I’ll pass.

Training is important, but it means nothing if you just weaponize it and use it as a way to prevent people from exercising their rights and the bill HR127 proves that’s exactly what they intend to do.

If you own a gun, do the best you can to get training. If you can’t afford it, go online; YouTube is literally a video encyclopedia of information that you can use to learn and then take the time to spread what you learned to other people.

If you see someone breaking the 4 rules of gun safety, call them out on it so that they can learn and correct their behavior. There should be a social stigma for the unsafe handling of a firearm, but there shouldn’t be a financial bar entry to exercise a right and that’s exactly what Government-mandated training does.