Training is one of those things that we harp on a fair bit, yet don’t really harp on it enough. There are a lot of people saying that new gun buyers absolutely need to go and get training, sure, and we repeat it fairly often. 

However, training is one of those things that you can’t really overemphasize, in my view.

But one concern I always have is about how many people are actually listening? How many people get a gun, watch John Wick, and think they understand what to do?

Well, I’m sure those people are out there, but it also seems like a lot of people are smarter than that.

Crime, defunding police, fear of uncertainty and unrest after natural disasters or another pandemic are fueling gun ownership and interest in gun schools.

“There’s a lot of things, a lot of chaos that happens, especially like big cities, and, you know, people don’t want to be the victim anymore,” says Eric Stieber, attending a week-long handgun class at Gunsite Academy, a massive gun training school near Prescott, Arizona.

…

“If you buy a piano, you’re not Billy Joel. If you buy a gun, you’re not Wyatt Earp. If you buy a gun, you need to practice,” says Kevin Regan, a Maryland real estate executive.

“The number one takeaway I got from this experience is – don’t go out and buy a gun and just go down to the shooting range and think that you’re trained, because you are not,” says Texas trauma surgeon Bill Morgan.

Morgan had just finished 10 minutes inside an indoor simulator known as the Playhouse, a concrete block house where students face cardboard targets in virtually every room. Some carry a gun, others carry a purse or a beer in their hand. Students are expected to clear the house – shoot the bad guys and spare the innocent. Miami investor Ari Paul said it’s more stressful than it appears.

“I live in Florida, where I think something like a third of all households have a firearm. So it’s not a terrible skill to have,” he says. “No one should buy a firearm unless they were prepared to train intensely and treat it seriously. Because I think without proper training, you’re more likely to do harm than good.”

What kind of training you can get ranges from very basic, beginner-level stuff to advanced tactics that you’d see with a SWAT team or something. It can range in quality, too, unfortunately.

There’s a lot of discussion we should probably have about training and how to vet a trainer you’re unfamiliar with, but most trainers are good to go on the basics of handling a firearm.

That should never be your bottom line.

Look, the way I see it, if SEALS in DevGru and guys in Delta are training all of the time, learning new stuff, and advancing their knowledge and skills, there’s absolutely zero chance I know enough and am good enough to consider myself done with training. That’s true of all of you.

Now, we do have to pay for it ourselves, which limits how much we can take in a given year, plus we have to buy our own ammo, which also governs our decisions, so I’m not shaming anyone for not taking 20 classes this year alone or anything. You can only do what you can do.

What matters, though, is that you do it.

I’m delighted to see that there’s an apparent uptick in training class signups, at least at some places, especially at a well-reputed school like Gunsite. 

Let’s see more of it.