Editorial: Gun owners should get CCW training

It's revealing that the unnamed Courier editor thinks it necessary to say that gun owners should get training even though the new law doesn't require it. Isn't it dead obvious that society has little to fear from people who are competent and responsible enough to take this advice? The problem for us all is the many who are irresponsible and/or incompetent.

From the mouths and keyboards of that same group, the comments further illustrate why responsible people want and support restrictions on firearms. It's hair-raising what some people think.

Just as we institute speed limits because of the few who aren't responsible enough to keep fellow drivers safe, we maintain restrictions on firearms because of those who would abuse their rights stupidly, incompetently or irresponsibly. No one seriously argues that speed limits are an unconstitutional infringement of our right to free movement and assembly.

If the editor cared more about public safety than the imagined freedom of an armed populace and his personal right to make loud noises and break things whenever he likes, he'd have opposed the new law. Imagining that this "freedom" will not encourage irresponsible people to act irresponsibly is as woolly-headed as it gets.