My wife and I as responsible gun owners and CCL holders were shocked by several things. First that she bought a gun and the gun shop owner did not question her of her knowledge of firearms.
There's no mention in the blog post whether "Tony" was the gun shop owner or not, but whether he was or wasn't, it wasn't his responsibility (or even within his authority) to demand she quantify her knowledge of firearms before making her purchase.
Second, the officer should have taken a more positive attitude towards getting her some instruction.
I could agree that a nice thing to do would have been to offer her advice there on the spot, or where to get training if he didn't have time to help her right then, but had he offered, she would've turned him down because her whole point was to meet the minimum requirements to carry for the next 30 days. Seems rather harsh to blame a cop on the beat for not doing what she would not have accepted even if he had.
I recently bought my first 1911, and was not familiar with the weapon, so I respectfully asked the dealer for the ins and outs of the gun. He happily proceeded to show me all of the features of the gun and their use.
I have little doubt that "Tony" would've happily done the same thing had the manipulative, phony, anti-gun
activist before him simply asked. She had no more interest in asking the counter-help for instruction than she did the cop though. Her whole point was to avoid any instruction that would make her more qualified than the bumbling, murderous, trigger-happy fools she perceives all of us to be.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that there are many who purchase firearms that don't have the first clue about what they are doing. It is an even more concerning fact of life that there are many, at least here in Michigan, who buy firearms for the express purpose of defensive carry whose first time out with the firearm they just purchased is in their CPL class.
It can get worse than that, actually. Several years ago I was hired for an armed guard position for a new account with a contract company. They were hiring, orientating and training the whole 16-person crew at the same time. So we get to the range to qualify (using 10 whole rounds!!!), and this one lady not only could not rack the slide on the Glock 22, she literally blew two holes in the
rafters of the range, and they still passed her! There were two former sheriffs deputies qualifying that day, and several of us, myself included, had years of both concealed carry and other armed security experience, so imagine my surprise when, on the first shift I pulled at the new account, I was introduced to this lady as the graveyard shift
supervisor! Seems she had a semester or three of criminal justice in college, plus a couple of other umm....circumstances....that moved her to the head of the line, so there it was, we were being supervised by someone who would've had to ask one of her subordinates to load her weapon if they weren't passed from shift to shift already loaded.
While the Second Amendment protects the right of each person who wishes to purchase and bear arms, it also says that the person who takes advantage of that right must be well disciplined in the use of those firearms. A lot of people concentrate on the "right to bear arms" while ignoring the "well regulated" portion of the amendment.
That's a very convoluted theory of what the 2nd Amendment says. It harkens back to the days before Heller where gun-grabbers tried to limit individuals' access to guns because they weren't part of the militia (the ol' "collective right vs. individual right" meme). Heller settled that issue once and for all - it is unquestionably an individual right. The militia part is simply an introductory preface to the meat of the matter, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The preface gave the reason why the individual right was necessary, because individuals would muster in furtherance of militia activity with their own weapons in tow. Once mustered, it was up to militia hierarchy to determine training standards, having nothing whatsoever to do with how well trained each individual armed citizen was when they were at home or otherwise away from militia duty.
Yours is the first analysis of 2A meaning(s) I've ever heard that concludes that it,
"...also says that the person who takes advantage of that right must be well disciplined in the use of those firearms." I contend that is grossly erroneous compared to any legal analysis available today. I would contend further that "well regulated" and "well disciplined" have separate and distinct meanings for each phrase, and that "well trained in firearms" is not necessarily synonymous with either.
Blues
