As a gun owner, you know that firearm training is essential to firearm safety. But, sadly, it’s no secret that firearm training, like any other kind of training, has good and bad options.
Now, many would argue that bad firearm training is caused by incompetent instructors, and, certainly, like any other group of instructors, some will be better than others. However, Lee Williams says that something else is the primary cause of bad firearm training.
What is that primary cause? The government.
Now, before you write Williams off as simply some anti-government protester, read what Williams has to say about it:
Unless you live in one of the 14 truly free states that allow Constitutional Carry (AKA permit-less carry), if you want to exercise your God-given right to self defense and carry a concealed firearm legally, the government is forcing you to buy poor quality firearms training.
In other words, the government is subsidizing bad training.
How is this possible?
Concealed carry permits are the root cause.
Most state governments require a certain amount of training before they’ll issue a carry permit, and they only recognize certain types of credentials for instructors who teach these basic classes.
Almost always, the states require the instructor to be certified by the National Rifle Association.
The NRA and other credentialing organizations only allow their instructors to present a very specific course, with no deviation from the approved curriculum. If an instructor deviates from the lesson plan, there can be consequences. Remember: Once credentials are issued, they can be revoked.
To be clear, these introductory courses are a joke. The techniques they present are antiquated, stale and some are even downright dangerous when compared to modern best practices. These classes present very little real-world information, because most of the lessons have been scrubbed of any possible liability and lawyered to death.
There are far better training options, but they aren’t state-approved and therefore offer no certificates that can be exchanged for carry permits.
There is a group of instructors out there — a mere handful compared to the 100,000-plus NRA certified instructors — who don’t care about credentials or certification from NRA or anybody else. They teach gunfighting, and they don’t bother teaching the government-approved lesson plans.
The difference between the training they present and the state-approved dogma is night and day. They teach from experience not textbooks, and they’re not prohibited from showing students what really works and what really doesn’t.
Now, whether you agree with Williams that NRA-approved firearm training is useful or not, he does raise a valid point: if the government determines what is valid training for you to obtain a permit, then, to a large extent, they control the information you receive about effective self-defense with a firearm. Just like in the mainstream news media, limiting who provides the information also limits access to potentially valuable perspectives and insights, and this can be dangerous.
What do you think: Is Williams right or is there another primary cause of bad firearms training? Tell us below.