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“The Washington Arms Collectors no longer offers free Home Firearms Safety courses (we decided to curtail them because it involves actual handling of actual firearms and it would have required hundreds of background checks for each class).” – TTAG commentator George under our post Quote of the Day: Vermont Mom Intimidated By Gun Right Advocates

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62 COMMENTS

  1. See all the “gun safety” being promoted by these “common sense” laws?

    Where you are wrong is in referring to such consequences as unintended. The intent is to make the possession and bearing of arms more difficult, in order to discourage such exercise of rights.

    • That’s why we need to lean heavy on requiring the ‘4-rules’ be taught in elementary school.

      We have the *perfect* logic for doing so – the *only* thing taught will be to NOT TOUCH a gun.

      Shame the Progs into it.

      “Why do you Progressives want children to die?”

      (Baby steps. Safe handling later in middle-high school…)

      • same thing i told the girl yesterday. safety and awareness should absolutely be taught from grade school, ad nauseum. i grilled her on the four and she threw seven at me. good enough.
        all because she started in with licensing and training being a good idea. she’s too young to realize that illinois is unusual in having a licensing scheme.
        she knows now.

        • Here’s the weird thing-

          We have these People Of The Gun that *demand* there be no training or instruction of ANY type required before carrying.

          I consider the ‘4 rules’ and basic gun handling they will get in school as being fully qualified for carry.

          Will those same People Of The Gun *demand* those ‘4 rules’ and basic handling NOT BE TAUGHT to kids?

        • Why would someone who opposes mandatory, state-detetmined training as a prerequisite to the exercise of a natural right that is constitutionally protected against government infringement inherently be opposed to teaching safe firearms handling in school?

        • Why would one object to other training than state mandated? State mandated on the surface, sure, one training as good as another, then the state regulates who can train either via cost or status, it mandates what weapons one can train with thereby eliminating any class of weapon they choose. Then via training being a prerequisite to the right, the right no longer exists.

        • Please take note of the vast difference between, for instance, universal public education teaching children how to read, versus literacy tests for voting.

        • it is because guns are so darn icky and scary that despite the half a billion chances a kid has to come across one, firearm safety training in school= ostrich head in sand. nope, no, unh uh, nope no way.
          i would be surprised if even 2a purists would be against child firearm safety instruction. it should at least be available curriculum.

      • Some schools in NC are having firearms classes again, including actual live fire (just like when I went to school). A survey was done with 64% in favor of elementary school, 10% middle/high school and only 26% not in favor. One can only hope.

        • “64% in favor of elementary school, 10% middle/high school and only 26% not in favor”

          Meaning 64% were in favor of teaching it in elementary school up and 10% were in favor of middle/high school up?

        • Yes, 64% thought training should start in elementary school. A total of 74% thought firearms training should be done at public schools.

      • Schools should teach the 4 rules+Ears and Eyes. Ears and Eyes is only not part of the 4 rules because, unlike the 4 rules, it doesn’t apply in a sudden firefight.

        For that matter teach them basic cold range procedure.

  2. The only real way to practice complete gun safety is to remove all guns

    Subtext for every “common sense” gun control law

  3. This “quote” makes no sense… Why are you offering a course where the student does NOT supply his/her own firearm? Kind of stupid if you ask me. The student needs to be trained with the firearm THEY will be using for home defense not some arbitrary gun you happen to be using for the class..!

      • If “I” am offering a course, I do not offer it for anyone who does not already own a firearm… This solves several problems not the least of which is the fact that the firearm owner has already passed the background check and can legally possess or own a firearm. It also does not make any sense that the organization offering the course has all the sunk cost of the firearms themselves. But again, getting training using a firearm that you, most likely, will not be using yourself, makes no sense!

        • A major part of safety training is to expose the student to firearm action types different than those they own, or already know how to operate. A Beretta M9 should have the safety applied prior to clearing the firearm; a 1911A1 CANNOT have the thumb safety applied prior to clearing, as it will lock the slide in the closed position. Practical exercises like these require hands-on training with each firearm type, which is made difficult or illegal by some of these restrictive laws.

        • All I can say, Mr Hamlin, is I’m very glad you’re not the training director at my local (member-owned and -maintained) club and range.

        • You guys are missing my point entirely… Oh and it’s “Hanlin” not Hamlin… The point I’m making is for a firearm TRAINING class… HOME SAFETY FIREARM TRAINING… For the person who wants to learn to defend themselves and their loved ones in their home with the firearm they purchased. This is not an armorers course on firearms… But look, if you can’t understand my point then there’s no reason to continue the conversation. But understand one last thing. You cannot train anyone to be safe enough and proficient enough to be assured they can defend their lives and their loved ones by simply exposing them to a bunch of different firearms in a one day class. You have got to train with the firearm that you own and that you will be using!!

        • In the safest state in the country (MA) /sarc I cannot own a firearm before I have a class. I had 1/2 day class and 1/2 day range with 32 cal revolver and 22 cal semi-auto. Some states force class before ownership.

        • Apologies for the misspelling.

          Re the rest, I think we will have to agree to disagree. I acknowledge your point but believe enabling a larger audience is something to be encouraged.

        • Mr. Hanlin, I understand your point completely.

          What YOU don’t understand, is your point is too limiting, and therefore wrong.

          These courses do not substitute training on other guns for training on the gun the person owns; it SUPPLEMENTS the training on their personal firearm, and makes sure they know that not all firearms operate in exactly the same manner. It also exposes future firearm owners to different action types in the hope that with a little knowledge, they might make a better, more educated choice of what firearm might work best for their family and situation.

        • Robert Hanlin:
          I tisnt that people don’t understand, it is that your point doesn’t address the scenario or the purpose of the law (to insure that there is a “chilling” effect from anyone handling anyone else’s firearm under any circumstances)

          In civil liberty terms these laws at purposely ambiguous in order to chill an explicit constitutional civil liberty, and at a social and practical level to make sure no one who doesn’t go out and buy a firearm and go through the hoops to do so in many jurisdictions, ever, even unloaded and in close supervision safety classes, can handle a firearm.

          Indeed it makes it unclear whether you can take someone hunting and loan them your shotgun without going ot an FFL first and after (and each time)

    • I have some family and friends who are anti gun. I tell all of them with children that the “abstinence only” policy doesn’t work for guns any better than for sex or alcohol. I say “sure, if you don’t have guns at home your kids can’t shoot themselves… at home. But if you want to just pretend guns don’t exist, you’re putting them at risk when they meet a friend who can get THEIR daddy’s guns. Learn gun safety and teach your kids gun safety and just maybe when their friend picks up a gun, your kid can at least stop them from pointing it at anyone.”

      That’s who would be taking a gun safety class without their own firearm. Antis learning about gun safety and being around responsible gun owners is a very good thing. A free safety class offered by a gun store, company, or organization is a very good thing. Even if they don’t require you to bring your own gun.

    • It seems to me that WAC is only trying to make a political point with this action. AFAIK there are many Airsoft pistols and other replica weapons that operate almost identically to the pistols they are designed to replicate and would certainly be suitable for safety training classes, including the possibility of (non-fatal) negligent discharges if you get it wrong.

      • Somebody has to pay for those Airsoft replicas.

        One advantage of using real guns, in a class offered by a member-based organization, is the possibility of soliciting loaners for the class.

        Would I volunteer a $6k race gun (assuming I had one, which I don’t)? No. But a gun in the safe that doesn’t see a lot of use anymore and isn’t worth that much? Quite possibly, sure.

    • So where does a non-gun owner go to get questions answered about a firearm that they ‘may’ want to own? How do you teach them what a GOOD trigger feels like without letting them handle one?

      One of the BIGGEST issues I see at the range with new gun owners is that they purchased a firearm without having fired it or anything similar to it, and in many cases having never fired a gun AT ALL. Then some gun salesman convinces them that his particular favorite snubnosed airweight .357 is the BEST in the store and sells them full magnum rounds to take it to the range for the first time ever. Can you say “disaster”? Goooood, I knew you could.

      Or a newbee that brings dad’s old 38 spl revolver with a 15 lb trigger that feels like it has sand in the mechanism. Can’t hit the broad side of a barn at 7 yrds (and actually hits the ground 1/2 way to the 7 yard target). Yeah, that’s a GOOD thing for a law to encourage. NOT.

      You teach a new shooter/driver/pilot with the APPROPRIATE training tool BEFORE they get into that high-powered race car/fighter plane.

      THINK about what you are supporting BEFORE you foster this crap on the rest of us just because some idiot politician or reporter told you it was a good idea. Some of us have already experienced the results of that stupidity without the law being passed.

    • Robert Hanlin “… Why are you offering a course where the student does NOT supply his/her own firearm?”
      Perhaps because not everyone knows what type, brand, or even caliber is most appropriate for them without having the opportunity to try several first?

      – Do we recommend that students purchase an automobile Before they take a Defensive Driving course?
      – Do we recommend that motorcyclists purchase a motorcycle Before they take a Motorcycle Safety course?
      – What about requiring someone to purchase a boat Before they take a Boating Safety course?

      • As to number 3, that happens quite a bit. Spend some time in the Coast Guard and you notice just how many do just that. Normally see them as we were pulling them off a sandbar.

  4. Not really ‘unintended’. They may act surprised that this has happened, but it fits in with their agenda and is working exactly as it was meant.

    • Exactly, this SPOS of a law was intended to make criminals out of legal gun owners and people just interested in shooting. The mere fact that they called this a “universal background check” law indicates the depths that progressive scum will go to fsck with gun owners.
      They lied on every TV ad they ran and they lied about what the bill does. I’m not sure anyone really understands exactly what the bill does, but it isn’t good. Funny how almost every Sheriff in the state has said they will not enforce this law. Because they know it is a stupid law that doesn’t make anyone safer. Thanks progressives for this hemorrhoid of a law you pricks.

  5. Sorry. It would be dangerous to teach firearm safety and not first use instructional weapons, especially if it was uncertain if they would know how to check for loaded, chambered and have muzzle and trigger discipline.

    • Tried it here in Nevada too. Spent some millions of bucks and actually managed to get it passed, then the Nevada legislature/courts told him to pound sand (we got a lot of that here) because the FBI NICS check provision violated Nevada law and was unenforceable.

      • It was actually the Nevada AG, and the basis of his opinion was that Nevada has its own system, not NICS, and that therefore it was impossible to comply with the law, since it required the use of NICS.

  6. In oft mentioned Illinois we HAVE more or less universal background checks. Besides making no difference you can rent a gun at a gunrange without being an owner. Please ‘splain it to me how this is materially different than Washington?

    • I thought your FOID was a permanent background check?

      What if, instead of FOID, you needed to have an FFL run your friend through NICS before letting him run a mag through your gun at the range, and he had to run you through NICS before he could give it back 2 minutes later?

      • Ah no FOID is nothing more than an ID. Regardless of what the Illinois State Po-leece claim. I still need a 4473 to buy a gun. Or privately sell-even to my own brother.Just another layer of BS. Maybe a Washington resident can shed light…

        • As a Washington resident, you had to do a background check for almost EVERY SINGLE time a firearm changed hands. Buddy wants to borrow your gun to go hunt since his is broken – go to the FFL and do a BG check. He wants to give it back to you after his hunt? Go to the FFL and do a BG check. Wanted to lend someone your gun on the range??? Yea, not without a BG check. They defined transfer so broadly as to make almost every single exchange require a BG check.
          The legislature recently “fixed” some of these problems – like you can hand your gun to someone on the range as long as you remain present, and some other issues, but it’s still a STUPID law that has really done nothing.

  7. Ah no. FOID is just an ID. Regardless what Illinois State Po-leece claim. I need a 4473 to buy anything. But IF I attempt to buy or sell ANY gun I have to check in with the ISP.

  8. What I love is that a study Bloomberg funded school (or department of the school) found that the only likely effect of universal background checks on “gun violence” was that it might increase suicides with guns because it would make it difficult to get guns out of a house with a person who was possibly suicidal.

    • You could always hold a raffle and let a local church win and then donate the gun to some local law enforcement agency, or destroy it. That seems to get around the UBC law okay. (/sarc)

    • Oh yea. That’s one of the things the WA legislature “fixed” with the law recently, so that guns could be given to the cops for safe keeping…

  9. Still waiting for the SAF and the NRA to get off their ass and do something about I-594. As usual they just collected their fees and just kept to picking the low hanging fruit in terms of court cases. Handy in it’s own way, but it’s doing absolutely nothing in terms of rolling back these laws.

    One of the most infuriating aspects of ‘gun culture’ is how the biggest supposedly ‘pro rights’ organizations refuse to do little more than constant holding action with the occasional lower court decision. And after 15 or so years of that crap I’m getting a bit tired of it. Which is why I now focus all my efforts on homemade firearms. No more of this horse manure about ‘safety’. Far as I’m concerned you can take that ‘safety background checks’ and cram it sideways. We have had information for decades that none of these laws do a single thing that’s beneficial towards that goal of making people safe. It’s a feel good law designed to make neo-liberal authoritarian FILTH feel safer when they walk around in their gated communities sipping Starbucks.

    • I think that you have to understand how slowly court cases actually move. Peruta, which has a pending petition of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, was filed in federal court over five years ago, and probably six. Assuming that cert is granted, it may be at least another couple of years before the case is decided. An open carry case by Mr. Nichols was filed a couple of years later, was stayed pending Peruta, and is still waiting for its oral argument date in the Court of Appeal, and since there is no timeline for issuance of opinions, it could be a couple of years more before an opinion is issued. In fact, I rather suspect that the Court of Appeals will do nothing with that case until the cert petition in Peruta is decided, and if it is, Mr. Nichols may see his case stayed once again, since the last thing the Ninth Circuit wants to do, after declaring that there is no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed firearm, is to declare that California’s ban on the open carry of firearms in all incorporated areas is unconstitutional. (Because Gunz!)

  10. I was on holiday in Washington state in March. None of the local ranges would rent a firearm unless I did their safety course (every range had a different one) and was a resident.

    There seems to be a lot of confusion about the interpretation of the rules. Possibly deliberate from various police departments.

    It was easier to rent in California.

    I agree with most above comments that you should rent different firearms before buying. Preferably with an experienced instructor.

  11. I lived in Essex Juction, VT and went to college at UVM. When I was there everyone seemed to have “Take Back Vermont” bumper stickers. They are a real proud people that call everyone else “Flat Landers.” I liked the older generation better than the Berkinstock wearing hippies that were all over Burlington.

    • We in the ‘Peoples Republic of Vermont’ live in a state that has no gun laws, no such thing as a ‘permit’ for your constitutional rights, and WE ARE THE SAFEST STATE IN THE UNION FOR THE THIRD YEAR RUNNING!! We’re only second to Switzerland in world safety ratings, where every household is required to have a functioning firearm and ammo. WHY DON’T THESE LIBERAL IDIOTS WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS??

  12. California just passed a law that, although not as restrictive as Washington’s, still limits exempt transfers (loans) of firearms to family members. No one knows what this is supposed to accomplish, but since the Legislature also banned CCW carriers from carrying on school campuses, despite there being no evidence of even a single incident, we’ve come to expect such senselessness.

  13. The problem I have with the so-called UBC’s is that, first and foremost and before we even get to talking about the fact that in order to implement them you’d have to have a registry of all guns and likely all who own them, is that the background checks themselves don’t stop bad people from doing bad things.

    Vester Flanagan.

    James Holmes.

    Dylan Roof.

    Jared Lee Loughner.

    Elliot Rodger.

    Etc. Etc. (making an exhaustive list of all the bad guys who passed their checks to get the very weapons they used to perpetrate the evil deeds they are infamous for would take all day!)

    These shooters all had ONE thing in common: all the firearms used were legally purchased, the shooters having had nothing on their records stopping them from owning guns, even in the most restrictive state for owning firearms in the union, California.

    Not even the ridiculous new demand that government have the authority to deny people their rights without due process and based on secret lists would have stopped the San Bernardino California massacre, as both Farook and Malik had recently had no problems flying abroad, with Malik passing the “extra scrutiny” required of foreigners entering the US from nations with terrorist problems!

    Not -ONE- of these new proposals from the anti-gun left will result in success in stopping mass shooters.

    Now.

    Why should we surrender further our natural, unalienable rights to self defense for their failed policies?

    Why should we allow their previous violations to deprive us of the same?

    We need to REPEAL “gun control”.

    Make it so that if someone does something evil, they will be met with immediate resistance BEFORE the police can get there, and watch how quick this mass shooting insanity stops.

    • Under some of these laws, me handing you a gun for ANY reason is considered a transfer, and transfers must be done in accordance with the same laws used for a purchase. They COULD have put in an exception for training classes, but they didn’t.

      That should tell you something, right there.

  14. You say “unintended consequences”, I say the law is doing exactly what Democrats wanted – it’s reducing the number of people who legally own the gun.

  15. I will use the terrible lesson of Washington state, in Kentucky if any fool tries to have Universal Background Checks here!!
    You are either a liar or an uneducated fool if you believe in UBC’s.

  16. Okay, there is no fee required for WA’s BGC.

    So you get a FFL willing to help out, and go ahead and have a class where twenty people pass a dozen guns back and forth — rather, find twenty FFLs willing, and twenty people per class, and deluge the system with over a thousand checks the same afternoon.

    Or just get a bunch of people together and hand around guns, making that call every time.

  17. “Unintended?” That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

    They like it, knew it would happen, and intended it. When the anti’s talk about “common sense …” whatever, call them out on these “unintended consequences” every time.

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