DFWTT wrote:I don't attempt to impose my beliefs on anyone. As for choices; the choice I make is to be as informative and positive as I can when asked about gun operation and safety. Some people just feel like thier questions are stupid and as we all know the only stupid question is the one that isn't asked. So what happens is that they go into situations that they are ill prepared for. For instance, husband pushes and pushes wife to take the CHL with him "for her benefit". Having never handled a gun, the wife goes to class completely in the dark and feeling incompetent. Not good for her or anyone else. She cannot effectively learn and her frustration affects her and those around her. This is just an example, not intended to segregate anyone.
Your scenario probably resulted in some degradation in the class that she attended. But a possible outcome is that she came out of the class with a new zeal to learn and contacts to be able to do it. It is also possible that she confided in her husband about her frustration, especially if he continued to push her and he either gave up or helped her find a different approach.
For me, the CHL class was the beginning. Yes, I had put about 300 rounds down range before I went to class but on the greater learning curve, I'd barely taken a couple of baby steps. It has not yet been a year for me and I cannot believe how much I've learned. Probably more important, I have a much better understanding of what I have to learn yet. I doubt that any who was in my class would have expected me to be where I am, based on I was able to show in that class.
Let me talk about what I see as a somewhat parallel situation. We drive an 11 ton RV on our regular driver's license. I do all of the maintenance on that vehicle including the air brake system. If you read the RV forums, that is a prescription for disaster. What, no special drivers test? An you don't take the vehicle in for regular inspections by professionals? Nope. And we've had the vehicle for 7 years, put 40,000 miles on it and driven it places where many people won't drive a car (Atlanta bypass, downtown Denver) - without a single issue. Before we got it, I'd never driven anything larger than a 30ft rental truck. An you haven't lived until you drive something that heavy down Palo Duro Cayon State Park's entrance road (10 percent grade.) So why haven't I splattered the vehicle all over the roadway and killed hundreds of my fellow drivers? It is pretty simple. I don't want to kill myself or my family (we took 5 adults, two dogs and a baby on a 3,000, 8 day trip.) I studied the things that I needed to. I read and learned, questioned and practiced. My wife drives the RV, too. As someone else pointed out, people tend to be self regulating. Yes, there may be fools out there who take huge risks and do downright dangerous things. But as I post on every thread where the RVers want the government to impose more rigorous licensing restricting on we older folks who just crawl in to a heavy vehicle and drive, what problem are we solving? Are the RV wrecks? Sure but my insurance premium on that vehicle is less than my passenger cars. If RV drivers, as a class, were a dangerous as some of the threads make them out to be, my insurance premiums would be through the roof - if I could get any at all. BTW, I'd take one of those dangerous RV drivers over a teenager driving with a cell phone any day of the week.
I guess that I have basic faith in people doing the right thing with dangerous items, even if it appears initially that they aren't headed in that direction. Some folks just don't catch on to the safety exposures as quickly as others but they either do catch on or we read about them in the news. Since we aren't reading a lot of that kind of news, I think that it is OK to assume that some way or another, they got it figured out. I am all for offering all of the basic education that we possibly can and, as individuals, encouraging others to take advantage of that education. Ultimately, it is their decision.
