How To Get Into Trouble With Just Two Blogs/ Part One

It's one of the hottest of the hot-button issues and my feelings on it have changed several times over the years. Now, with Chicago/Oak Park's handgun ban affirmed by the Court of Appeals and headed to the Supreme Court, I figure I'll spell out my position and see how many friends take shots at me.

Figuratively only, I hope.

I've had literally hundreds of hours of training over the years but recently went back and took a basic course just for safety purposes. I think about safety every time I pick up a handgun, even if it's handed to me, empty, by a store clerk. A gun store clerk, in fact, pointed a gun I knew to be empty at me the other day and I pushed the barrel away and took the gun from him.

I think handguns should be available to anyone who wishes to own one as long as they follow the law, take basic safety precautions and have the appropriate training. The latter point is where the NRA and some of my gun-toting friends and I disagree.

The basic class I took last month was taught on two consecutive Saturdays for a total of sixteen hours, including well-supervised range time. The topics of concealed-carry and defensive shooting were not even mentioned. Those are left for other, longer, classes.

In my opinion, sixteen to twenty hours of safety-based training should be the minimum required to purchase a handgun in Illinois. Recent police, security or military experience can be taken into account but the buyer should be able to produce proof of that training.

"But I been shootin' since I was knee-high to a basset hound!" some will protest.
That's great. The gun store clerk who pointed the gun at me claimed the same thing. So have a handful of my friends who I've taken to the range. Not one of them could recite the three basic rules of handgun safety. Only a couple handled the weapon I handed them in a safe manner.

Training should be mandatory. And if you want to carry a handgun concealed, more training should be required. I'll talk about the pros and cons of concealed carry as I see them, in tomorrow's blog.