Understood, but that still excludes those not physically capable of taking or passing the training. What about disabled or elderly students and professors on college campus? Don't they have the same right to carry for self-defense purposes as enjoyed by the young and healthy?Embalmo wrote:The Annoyed Man,
My original question was, "Would you undergo additional training if it meant you could carry concealed anywhere without restriction?"
Embalmo
I think that adding on additional requirements in order to expand the scope of CHL permissions is heading in the wrong direction. The right direction is to simply make CHL carry legal on campus. We've already proven that the streets won't run with blood just because you've armed law-abiding citizens. That argument has already been won, even though those opposed either don't realize it or refuse to accept it. But you can't debate the facts of the matter. Any ongoing resistance to guns on campus has nothing to do with facts, and everything to do with an academia which is fundamentally biased against the RKBA. Further restricting CHL carry to only those who pass the same kind of qualifications as LEOs would only make them happier because it would reduce the number of armed citizens at large; but it would still not convince them to permit guns on campus because they hate guns, and they have disdain for those who feel the need to carry them.
You may be a student and having to deal with this, but I grew up the son of two university professors (Caltech), and I spent most of my life soaking in the academia culture. Trust me... What you propose would only make it harder for regular citizens to carry firearms, and it would do nothing to free up gun carry on campus. You would be playing into their hands.
And these same arguments apply to restricting carry in any other venue. The only possible exceptions I would make to that would be CHL inside a prison, or something as uncommon as that. And I might be accepting of CHL restriction inside a 51% establishment.
RKBA is either a right, or it isn't. Anything that deviates from "shall not be infringed" is a tactical (and possibly strategic) error. The existence of CHL was a step in the right direction when the context was the complete restriction of concealed carry. CHL law made concealed carry more accessible to average citizens. In that context, it was the right step. The next correct step is anything that further loosens the restrictions — the "parking lot" bill, for example — not something that makes them more stringent.
And by the way, talk to some of the LEOs on this board about the general qualifications of LEOs. There are plenty of LEOs who are not very interested in firearms and who are not very enthusiastic about CHL. The LEOs who are members here are not in that category, but I'll bet they know plenty of other LEOs who are. And when it comes to Academia, trust me, they are not happy about armed cops on campus. They just can't think of an argument against it that wouldn't get them laughed off campus — since they've predicated their entire argument against CHL on campus on the notion that only cops are qualified to carry.