Steve McLaughlin trains citizens to be responsible weapons owners, particularly for Washington’s concealed pistol licenses (CPL). Naively I asked whether Washington required training before approving a license. He fired his answer with the controlled force of his military training. “No, and that’s the way it should be.”

    For educators like me that’s backwards—people should get trained first, then get a permit.

    Steve is a retired Navy commander who has worked in special forces combat in the Balkans, Africa and Iraq. “Lots of times I’ve fought where people may not carry guns. Without the second amendment, the first amendment, freedom of speech, would not exist.”

    Last week I experienced why our nation’s founders chose the first two amendments. I visited Colonial Williamsburg, historically preserved to pre-revolutionary war years. Actors recreated the fury of townspeople after the royal governor ordered gunpowder removed from the community’s magazine in a middle-of-the-night maneuver.

    Later a woman playing a townsperson identified the wood grained gold-trimmed flintlocks and pistols hung on a magazine wall. The weapons would have stablized my fears if my family lived during that passionate struggle of freedom versus protection. “Who owns these weapons,” I asked?

    “The Crown,” she said.

    Without gunpowder the security from those firearms vanished. I understood why the right to bear arms amendment included the words "shall not be infringed." While Steve supports citizens exercising their constitutional right to bear arms, he worries that they don’t understand their responsibility when carrying a weapon and using it under stressful situations. He said, “They are liable for their bullet's [damage] into and through anyone without [either] endangering themselves, those around them, and beyond.”

    Applications for a CPL are at the Sheriff’s office. It’s comforting that Washington prohibits people from owning a license for a number of reasons. Rhonda Pickering, records supervisor said reasons include conviction or adjudication for any felony charges and crimes committed by one household member against another, such as assault in the fourth degree and stalking. Federal law prohibits possession of a firearm for anyone convicted of domestic violence, adjudicated as mentally defective and other factors.   

    Rhonda said information about training has not been shared with their office, but training is going on. She said, “We’ve had an influx in the last six-to-nine months from people getting fingerprints for a Utah license.”

What? Training is offered by two organizations recommended in the November/December 2009 newsletter of the NCW Gun Club. They are Firearms Academy of Wenatchee operated by Ron Skaggs and Jake Davis and Fortis NRA Training operated by Steve McLaughlin and Shawn Mahood. Mahood is authorized to provide Utah’s four-hour certified training as a prerequisite to getting a license. He advises students to get fingerprinted locally and apply for a Utah license that is valid in more states than Washington’s. 

    Training needs to stress differences in state laws. In Washington you cannot step up to a bar with your weapon. In Utah, you must inform an officer immediately that you are carrying a loaded, permitted weapon. Otherwise an officer who sees it may act on the assumption it is a personal threat.

    I asked Rhonda if she thought people should get training. “Oh yeah, definitely. Sometimes it’s a little scary to see who’s getting a permit. If we had information from people who offered training, we’d hand it out.”

Washington should require a certified training course for people who want a concealed pistol license like Utah.
    Even qualified trainers recommend the training, although they recoil at the idea of additional governmental restriction. My opinion is we’d be doing the owners and all of us a favor.