Being born and raised in Montana, I have been around firearms for my entire life. I can even recall firing multiple military grade weapons before I was even in middle school. Due to this setting, I have always viewed guns as tools, not some cool status symbol or a toy. When this tool is used correctly, it can put food on the table for a family, protect a family, and provide a fun challenge when honing your skill with it at the firing range. However, like a car or any major tool you should have trained with it before you can use it in the real world, this is where conceal carry permits, and their holders begin to worry me.

There have been quite a few proposals to allow conceal carry permit holders to carry on college campuses. I see the reasoning behind this mindset. If people have the means to stop an active shooter before any real chaos happens then not only is it a decent deterrent it allows students to protect themselves. While this may work in theory, I do not think it will work in practice, at least under the current model.

To answer why I think this I will delve into psychology. When someone is in a dangerous situation it is quite possible they go into survival mode where the primal self-preservation takes effect. You see examples of this if you have ever trained to be a lifeguard. One of the main things they teach you is how to avoid being drowned by the victim. This is because if the situation is dire enough, they see a lifeguard and don't think, "oh I'm being rescued." they see a buoyant body that can be used for flotation. This is similar to what could happen in a mass shooter situation. People are in the thick of it and then the primitive fight or flight kicks in as well as the primitive self preservation and could cause a lot of people to get hurt. This trait is why people train to deal with tactical response situations. They train to be able to assess and react to the situation in a calm manner and try and prevent self-preservation from kicking into a significant degree and endangering lives.

This type of training could be provided to people, but it is not required. This lack of training is why I do not trust conceal and carry permit holders. Because I don't know if they have the tactical training to deal with an armed situation. While some permit holders are former military (a few of whom I know personally), the overall group is not required to go through this training. Some people may argue that this impedes on the right to bear arms. But if we do want to use firearms as the constitution states for the safety and security of the nation we have to be able to secure the nation safely, and letting people try and respond to active shooter situations that have no training to deal with the scenario then they can cause more harm than good.