With President Trump in the White House and more gun-friendly appointees at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, gun owners can enjoy a sense of relief. But relief should not lead to complacency. Firearm prohibitionists have not ceded the field and are actively seeking new opportunities to advance their agenda.
A recently launched initiative by Everytown, billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s sprawling anti-gun vanity project, is a case in point. Even as they advocate for bans and prior restraints on firearm ownership, Everytown is expanding into the area of firearms training, an arena the NRA has dominated since 1871. To say there is a divergence in emphasis, however, would be an understatement.
The NRA’s firearm-training courses are accessible and practical, not political. They are designed to equip students with the basic knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively and safely exercise their right to keep and bear arms. Education and training are foundational to the culture that sustains a vibrant Second Amendment. NRA is second to none when it comes to this vital function, boasting a nationwide network of over 125,000 certified instructors who offer state-of-the-art education in every aspect of firearms handling and use, as well as in the mindset and habits of avoiding victimization.
Yet the NRA also believes decisions about amounts and types of training should be left to individual gun owners; one size definitely does not fit all. By way of analogy, most would agree that exercise is essential to good health and that a fit, healthy population benefits the nation at large. But the idea that the government should therefore enforce a mandatory exercise regime does not follow. There are too many variables to individual circumstances and objectives for that to be practical or beneficial.
Meanwhile, America is a land divided when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms. Supreme Court precedent on the Second Amendment has never been more favorable, and gun owners are no longer being targeted by the federal bureaucracy. But anti-gun states are becoming ever more restrictive. They have launched an all-out campaign of denial, resistance and defiance to the Second Amendment, assisted and encouraged by Everytown and its ilk.
The most anti-gun jurisdictions in America are scarcely better for gun owners, and some are arguably even worse than many foreign jurisdictions with no constitutional right to arms and no broad tradition of private firearm ownership. It is, frankly, a national disgrace.
Or, in Everytown’s way of thinking, a good start.
This is why seeking firearms training from Everytown is like asking PETA to teach you how to grill a steak.
Everytown believes every person who wants to own a firearm, whatever the individual’s background or circumstances, should have to go through a government-mandated training program at their own expense. And they believe “essential knowledge” for gun owners begins with a harangue on the liabilities of gun ownership.
Indeed, Everytown has supported laws to force firearms dealers to post warnings about the supposed dangers and legal pitfalls of owning a gun and for criminal penalties for gun owners who don’t store their firearms unloaded and in a disabled state.
Currently, Everytown’s “Train Smart” network consists of a whopping eight different instructors in six different states. Half of them claim military experience. Others proudly tout various “inclusivity” bona fides that have no obvious relationship to expertise with firearms. Three are in Colorado, a state that has recently gone all-in on sweeping gun control. There is also one each from the anti-gun bastions of Hawaii and New York. Only three are from gun-friendly states: Maine, Missouri and Texas.
Amusingly, Everytown’s training “Leadership Council” has more members than its actual training staff, an apt illustration of the organization’s top-down nature.
Yet while it is easy to make fun of the inherent contradictions of anti-gun activists presuming to teach people about guns, politicizing learning is no laughing matter. Zealots have long understood the power of using “education” to advance extremist agendas. You don’t have to look far to find a law school that portrays the Constitution as obsolete or a college that portrays U.S. history as a hellscape of exploitation and inequality.
It seems Everytown’s courses are currently available only online, with no live-fire component.
While we would normally consider that antithetical to legitimate firearms training, in this case, it’s probably the safest bet for all concerned.
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