I am glad you feel comfortable expressing your view and I certainly maintain an open door policy. I understand what you are saying, but there is a difference between what you are implying, which I view as a moral component and the right itself. The constitutional right is not granted because someone meet a qualification or changed their view point. It is an inalienable right, pure and simple. I don’t know how much knowledge base you have on CHL permits, but most require a class be successfully completed. Each state varies in content, depth and scope. Is it a enough, that is not up to me to decide. I am much more inclined to express an expectation that an individual chooses of their own free will to pursue further education than make it a requirement.

In closing, as of today now, there have been 238 deaths on the Texas roads this year alone. All it takes to obtain a license here is a 32 hour class and successful completion of a drivers test. You are much more likely to experience a traumatic or critical event in your vehicle. I feel it is important we keep things in perspective and not fall too far down the rabbits hole.

Jeff, I understand your perspective in regards to every citizen’s right to bear arms. I would like to see California become a lot less restrictive with their futile attempts at criminal behavior control through the implementation of tighter restrictions on law abiding citizens. For me, carrying a firearm for personal defense or defense of someone else is not just a right, it is a sacred responsibility. I know officers who are never armed off-duty–shame on them. The private citizen who chooses to exercise his/her right assumes this same sacred responsibility (like it or not) when he/she makes the decision to be armed. Folks who decide to carry a firearm for personal defense should practice and have their mind right before they get into a situation where they might have to kill someone. The person who carries a firearm for personal defense should be versed in when it is appropriate to display and/or use it. The armed citizen should know what to expect in terms of personal performance in a high-stress real life force encounter. The armed citizen should be intimately familiar with the operation of his/her sidearm of choice. The list goes on. As I said in my earlier post, there are police officers who barely meet the conditions I described. By all means, let’s not advocate for placing unnecessary restrictions on the rights of those citizens who choose to be armed, but let’s also be smart about ensuring these armed private citizens are an asset to themselves and society and not a burden. I certainly don’t want some guy with a license to carry a firearm unintentionally injuring an innocent person or losing his weapon to a more determined criminal, because he was not prepared to be armed in the first place. Thank- you for the platform to express my views Jeff.

Most citizens who carry should get additional training but I see most of them shoot a hundred rounds of target ammo and that’s the extent of their training. They don’t even practice with their spicy defensive rounds. Even many in law enforcement suffer from diminishing skills simply because after the academy all they do is shoot a hundred rounds or so for their annual or semi-annual qualifications. Qualification courses of fire geared towards the lowest common denominators. Lack of continuous and realistic training is an epidemic for both private citizens and law enforcement.

Thank you for the kind words and I appreciate your honesty. My only comment is to turn to the examples set by the hundreds of thousands of folks who have undergone their CHL or carry permits in other states. Practice nor mindset is a requirement to exercise their constitutional rights nor should it be in any state.

http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/cgf_sheriff_exhibits.A.pdf

Of course, we’ll probably see this case end up in the Supreme Court. It’d be interesting to see what happens in the meantime.