The question was, "Should all citizens, whether they carry openly or concealed, be made to attend and successfully pass standardized training in order to carry?" It seems most of the folks here believe that to
require such training would violate Amendment II of our Constitution, and I can
understand their concerns in that regard. However, my life has been dedicated to playing 'devil's advocate', and why should
today be any different?
Definition of INFRINGE (courtesy of Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
transitive verb
1: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another <infringe a patent>
2: obsolete: defeat, frustrate
My problem would be that there are those who would drive themselves - and everybody around them -
absolutely nuts trying to define (or, in some cases,
redefine) the word "standardized"... but, I'll come back to that later.
I don't see requiring training ("standardized"
probably at the state level - it would be a
10th Amendment "States rights" issue) as an
infringement upon our
right to "keep and bear arms". Most of the things we
keep, we keep
in or around our domicile. If I am "keeping" guns, I certainly won't have them all on my person. And, in this instance anyway, the "
bearing of arms" is synonymous with "the carrying of arms" (the available definitions of the word "bear" deal primarily with large, fur-covered omnivores). I don't see anything in Amendment II that protects, permits -
or even encourages - the unskilled presentation and discharge of those arms. Do we simply
assume those abilities are invisibly included, or 'understood', in 2A? I would support standardized training of some kind,
HOWEVER... there would have to be a stipulation that
no goverment agency (at
whatever level)
may charge additional fees or taxes for the conduct of such training and certification, above those already paid for government services. As
I see it,
to charge for such training and certification is where the 'infringement' would come in. Such training would
have to be provided
pro bono (
for public good, not to be confused with Cher's late ex) and therefore supporting our 2nd Amendment right.
Now, back to the word "standardized". If the word
itself were standardized, there would be little discussion over its meaning! But, it ain't, so there. Here's what I believe comes closest to what we would take as our meaning when used with the
object word "training":
Standardized: verb (used with object) 1. to bring to or make of an established standard size, weight , quality, strength, or the like. (Color added for emphasis - we would be looking for consistent
quality in this type of training). The language which we generally refer to as "English" is actually American English, but it is no more or no less complex than is British English and - because of its complexity - we lean toward disagreement over the semantics of an argument rather than its intent.
Anyway, my bottom line on the question is, I
don't believe a training requirement
alone would be an 'infringement' upon 2A for the above reasons. I
do believe that placing
any sort of fee or tax on that training
would then make the requirement an infringement. Pax!
