Firearm Instructors Carefully Screen Applicants
In the wake of the tragedy in Colorado, news came out that a gun club owner in Colorado, denied the suspect's application in June.
That owner said James Holmes answering machine message was bizarre, and told employees not to allow him on the property.
Firearms trainers here in the valley say they carefully screen who they teach to use a gun.
Steve Casey, owner of 6Rounds Firearms Training, pays close attention to who he trains to use a gun.
"People that want to do this correctly, and want to learn, if you don't have the proper attitude, not willing to accept the responsibilities that go along with firearm ownership, then I don't want to deal with you."
Casey understands the Colorado gun owner's decision to bar Holmes from training.
"With my background in law enforcement, when you deal with people on a regular basis, we do have training ourselves in looking into people's demeanor and their attitude, and you can pretty much tell whether or not they are going to be responsible with this type of training or not," said Casey.
Stronghold Firearm Training lead instructor J.J. Witten, says they do a thorough check of their applicants.
"The first thing we do is we screen them over the phone, we find out what kind of person they are, then they have to fill out a registration form, we need a full name, address, phone number, and some personal information and then we require that everyone that comes to one of our training classes does not have a felony."
And he says they have disqualified people from taking their classes.
"If somebody is calling and they're talking about wanting to defend themselves from zombies or, as crazy as it may sound we actually get those kinds of calls. Or if they start talking about guns that could be illegal that they have or things of that nature it's pretty easy to disqualify someone," said Witten.
Casey says the goal is to teach basic knowledge, skills and attitude necessary for owning a handgun.
"If anything it would be nice to have people have some kind of requirements for firearm training, I think that would probably filter out some of these incidents," said Casey.





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