One of the dumbest things in Second Amendment politics isn’t the animosity toward the NRA so much as how blind that animosity is. It’s one thing to dislike the organization because they either oppose you or because you don’t like how they did/do business. Those are fine. The issue is when that hatred starts to get in the way of things the NRA is actually good at.
For example, teaching people their courses.
In fact, a number of states have allowed NRA instructors to teach their various required courses, and it makes sense. These are already people who have shown they know how to teach a firearms class. That didn’t matter to the state of Washington. Well, it did, but it mattered in the worst way possible. They wanted to ban NRA-certified instructors from being able to teach their own course. That was the rule; the line in the sand.
Until they backpedaled.
The Washington State Patrol now says NRA-certified instructors can teach the mandatory permit-to-purchase class. The permit still costs $126, and the agency hasn’t reviewed a single curriculum.
Days after telling independent NRA-certified instructors they could not teach the firearms safety course required under Washington’s permit-to-purchase law, the agency reversed itself. Instead of admitting it misread the law, WSP reportedly blamed the terminology. The reversal came in a September 14 email to training providers, walking back the State Patrol’s original ban on NRA instructors that Seattle Red detailed Monday.
“The email sent September 11, 2026, regarding NRA sponsorship of firearm safety training resulted from a misunderstanding of the terminology used and how the statute is written,” the agency wrote. “Independent NRA-certified instructors may provide the firearm safety training required under RCW 9.41.1132 and RCW 9.41.070.”
Good. But the program is still a mess.
Frankly, the NRA basic courses are solid education and should be included as an option for any training requirement. Sure, the requirement itself is unconstitutional as hell, but if you’re going to do it, you’d do better to not make it an insurmountable burden.
Which Washington state officials seem bound and determined to do.
Then, of course, we have the fact that the law goes into effect on the first of May next year, and no one has bothered to review a single curriculum. Note that there isn’t an official one that has to be followed, just one that the state police will embrace, which is a lot harder than just teaching the material that the state has to cover.
While there is still a lot of time for them to do it, the fact that there will be curricula from each instructor means there will be a whole lot of work for whoever is responsible for this. It’s not like high school, where you could not read the books you needed to read, write the paper the night before, and still get an A. The only way to beat the schedule is to either bust butt getting it done, or faking it and just blanket approving everyone…or denying everyone. I guess that’s a choice, too.
Still, the idea of banning NRA instructors from even teaching a completely different class is vile. I don’t buy the “misunderstanding” excuse myself, especially since there is a lot of blind hatred of the NRA.
And most of those who hate the organization don’t even understand that the NRA is the one most willing to work with them if need be.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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