Inexperienced in Class

[DFWTT]

This looks a lot like this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=42762&hilit=harder+test

That guy wants further restrictions on CHL's that is absolutely not the intent of this thread. I suppose the intent is to put a few heads together to figure out how the people taking the leap may be better prepared. I don't think a intro pistol class is really needed, just a little common sense. What's the best way to get that message out? Interested persons need only familiarity. So prior to taking the class, someone runs a couple of safety guidelines by them. IIRC the rules of safety were not fully understood by everyone on the firing line i.e. muzzle down range and so forth.

[sugar land dave]

Another example: Older guy wants the license to send a message, but his hand-me-down guns haven't even seen daylight in years. He doesn't know much about self defense, but he doesn't carry once the license comes in anyway.

So I'm guessing my LCP in left front pocket, one in right rear pocket, and 1911 in a Smart Carry is a little more than you had in mind?

[pbwalker]

Older guy wants the license to send a message...

To who?

[BrianSW99]

I don't think that inexperienced should be barred from taking the CHL class. Maybe "requirement" wasn't exactly what I meant...I think that you should be able to display some level of proficiency with your handgun before taking the CHL class. I think they should be proficient even owning one. Not something mandated by the state or government, but more of a personal responsibility thing. You don't get in to a car and drive it without being somewhat capable of driving. You shouldn't handle a firearm without knowing how to operate it. It takes no time to learn it...

[Kirk]

We had a lady in my class who had issues loading and shooting. We had to stop till an instructor stood with her while she shoot. Her husband was there and it appeared that they planned on spending time on the the range after the class.

I made sure that I had enough range time before taking the class. Maybe this should be suggested but I don't see making it mandatory.

[Hoi Polloi]

Another example: Older guy wants the license to send a message, but his hand-me-down guns haven't even seen daylight in years. He doesn't know much about self defense, but he doesn't carry once the license comes in anyway.

So I'm guessing my LCP in left front pocket, one in right rear pocket, and 1911 in a Smart Carry is a little more than you had in mind?

But you're here on this forum and getting more education, kinda proving my point. The guy I was thinking of who did just that is not.

Older guy wants the license to send a message...

To who?

To the government, that people do not want to lose their rights. Adding his "vote" and voice by increasing the number of CHL holders by one. I've heard it several times as a reason for getting a CHL.

[baldeagle]

I see people driving cars every day that make me very nervous. I drive defensively to avoid getting involved in their potential accidents. I've driven a semi commercially. I had never driven commercially before but had some experience driving a semi on a farm. I rented a truck, took the test and passed and got my CDL. I suppose some experienced truck drivers would have been bothered by that. I've seen truck drivers that I would avoid like the plague. They follow too close at too high a speed and don't pay attention to their driving.

This is America. Until you prove you can't be trusted with something, if you can pass a basic proficiency test you get the license and you are free to go.

There are two possible approaches to governing. You can either require some proof of proficiency and leave people alone if they qualify or you can try to legislate every possible contingency to make things "safe" for the rest of us. The former looks a lot more like freedom than the latter.

As an individual you have choices as well. You can hang around the incompetent people or you can avoid them. You can attempt to educate the incompetent people or you can ignore them. None of those choices are "right" or "wrong". They're simply choices. I don't like people much, so I avoid crowded places and don't go to many public events. That's just me. Other people love to be in big crowds and around lots of people. You apparently don't like incompetent gun handlers. So you have choices. You can either avoid them or attempt to teach them. But what you should never try to do is impose your choices on everyone else. (I'm not suggesting that you are suggesting that we do that.) If we are going to maintain any semblance of freedom in America, we're going to have to accept the fact that some people won't be as conscientious about things that we care about as we are.

[DFWTT]

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.

[troglodyte]

This may not be the norm but it also shouldn't be a rarity.

I had a female student in class who had never pulled the trigger on a handgun. She borrowed one of my guns and a mutual friend gave her a crash course on loading and operation. I admit I was a little nervous and kept a watchful eye on her.

She shot the course, loading and operating the gun with proficiency, with enough points to pass. Was it pretty? Well, let's just say I still wouldn't want to get shot by her. She fumbled rounds, dropped her magazine, and shot my target stand but she was never unsafe. And what probably made the biggest difference is she listened to safety and range commands and followed them religously.

She has since gone to the range with regularity, carries whenever she can, and she is championing conceal carry to those around her.

Quite frankly, I would take a classful of her any day over the self-proclaimed gun expert I (and most of us) seem to have in every class. I have more problems with them on the range than I do with the new folk.

[ScottDLS]

I understand OP's point and I don't think he was pushing for additional restrictions, just lamenting that someone applying for a CHL had such poor handgun skills. I did not grow up in a house with "real" guns. I had a Daisy BB gun at 14 and practiced a lot. At 16 I started doing some Black Powder stuff for Civil War reenactments through a school club. I shot .22's once or twice with some friends' parents. My parents were basically neutral on the issue. So finally when I turned 18, I bought a mag fed semi-auto and joined the local NRA range. Dad and I went shooting regularly over the next couple summers. When I was 20 he bought me a 1911 .45 and we both shot it.

Moral of the story, many people are self taught. I got some basic stuff in the Navy much later when I was on active duty. As much as we CHL'ers would like to believe we're in some super secret club that requires mastery of arcana to reach the 357th level...guns are really not that much more complicated than a power tool. Both can maim and kill, and neither are really that hard to figure out. I am now a NRA Basic Pistol instructor and have shot all kinds of firearms from shotguns, to handguns, to belt fed machine guns. Best advice I ever heard was on TV...something to the effect of "keep your booger hook off the bang switch (until you're ready to shoot)".

Personally, I think I was a greater menace to public order when I got my Driver's License at 16, than when I had a semi-auto "magazine fed" rifle a couple years later.

[mr surveyor]

along the same lines, should firearms proficient 35 year olds that never "hunted" be required to take the "Hunter's Safety Course" with 12 year olds in order to get a (rather expensive) hunting license?

Some times the "rules" really don't make sense.

[chasfm11]

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.

[G26ster]

Yea, maybe it's a non-issue and yes there are not a lot of reported ND's. But with responsibility stressed at every turn, as it should be, how can this subject be looked upon as unimportant? I'm definitely sure that there should be NO more regulations placed on the CHL applicant. Some personal responsibility lies with the applicant though in at least becoming familiar with a firearm prior to making the decision to carry one? Agree?

I think you connecting this lack of training or familiarity to CHLs is off base. The lack of familiarity can be said of anyone inexperienced with firearms who simply purchases one and keeps it in the home or car. CHLs are no different.

[Beiruty]

I do not understand, how people buy a firearm and do not put the effort to train with it. Most likely if never used and stayed in a drawer or a safe, how one is supposed to shoot straight when the time to go bang is NOW!

[ScottDLS]

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.

Even though you, no doubt, could pass a Class A CDL if you wanted to...what's the point? I have the utmost respect for over the road truckers and the licensing they have to go through... but many drive 100,000 miles+ a year, and they have less choice of where/when to drive. I see less imperative for making an RV driver such as yourself get a CDL for your discretionary trips. It's kind of like saying CHL'ers should meet the same standards as cops under TXCLEOSE.