William Kirk of Washington Gun Legislation opened this one by admitting what most of us have been pondering: “We don’t have the intestinal fortitude to sit down by means of Everytown’s new gun coaching program.”
Fortunately, Lee Williams — the Gun Author himself and chief editor of the Second Modification Basis’s Investigative Journalism Undertaking — took the hit for the staff.
Williams, a former cop, veteran, and lifelong teacher, signed up for Everytown’s $20 “Good Information to Shopping for a Gun” course to see what the opposite facet was instructing. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t a lot.
“It was the worst instruction I’ve ever seen,” Williams mentioned. “The manufacturing high quality was nice, however the instruction? Not any second place.”
As a substitute of any live-fire classes, vary drills, or fundamental gun-handling demos, college students have been instructed to not have firearms wherever close by. The instructors — or, as Williams put it, “youngsters studying scripts” — delivered canned strains with zero credentials listed.
No legislation enforcement, no NRA certs, no competitors backgrounds. Simply private anecdotes like, “I grew up with weapons.”
The so-called “Good Information” turned out to be something however. “It was mainly ‘Don’t purchase a gun,’” Williams joked. “If you happen to do, take it aside, lock it up, cover the clips and the ammo.”
He mentioned Everytown’s messaging was much less about coaching and extra about indoctrination — convincing new shooters that possession itself is dangerous, irresponsible, or downright immoral.
The claims shared throughout the course didn’t maintain up, both.
One slide warned that proudly owning a gun “doubles your possibilities of dying by murder,” and one other claimed that firearms in home conditions make ladies “5 instances extra prone to be killed.”
Williams known as the stats “full bunk.”
“They don’t need you to have a gun for self-defense,” he mentioned. “They really recommended getting a canine as a substitute.”
Even the fundamental 4 guidelines of firearm security — credited for many years to Col. Jeff Cooper — have been repackaged with out acknowledgment. Everytown merely offered them as its personal invention.
“They didn’t point out Cooper, the NRA, or anybody,” Williams mentioned. “They acted like they got here up with them final week.”
In the long run, Williams summed it up completely: Everytown isn’t instructing gun security — it’s promoting worry, dressed up as schooling.
And whereas Kirk won’t have the abdomen for it, he was proper about one factor: generally one of the best lesson about “gun security” comes from watching what to not do.
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