Bailey you do make some great points. First, carrying, and personal defence is a RIGHT. No two ways about it. And government should not be allowed to stand in the way of that right, like IL does. Please don't take me for a gun hating liberal who believes that politicians of all people should be implementing training standards.

Irving made a great point that it would be great if social pressure/encouragement would drive people who carry to obtain more training, however the reality of the thing is that there is a serious social stigma about guns. "Polite people don't discuss such things." While I have no real data to back this up, my feeling is that the majority of the people who own guns have no formal firearms instruction beyond what the salesman told them when they bought the gun, which is minimal at best. I base this solely on personal observation.

I do not believe that the lack of training will suddenly create bullet riddled neighborhoods. It hasn't yet, and there is no reason to think it will. Granted, most RESPONCIBLE gun owners will seek out formal instruction. The problem is that not all gun owners are responcible. I used to have a co-worker who was bright as computer geeks go. He had a wife, big house down in CO Springs, and raised 2 daughters. By all rights, a responcible man. We worked side by side for over 10 years, and he was well aware of my background in weapons instruction, yet he'd bought a Glock in .40 S&W, and had it for 8 years before he ever thought to ask me to go shoot with him. He'd actually owned that gun for 8 years, and never even loaded the thing.

The hard fact of the matter is, that the majority of the people out there are all about exercising their rights, but they don't have the drive to exercise those rights responcibly.

One last point, then I'll hop down from my soap box. The big thing I think that the CO law should require, is training in the Colorado statutes governing Use of Force, and firearms. This is what Utah requires, and it makes since. When you carry a gun for personal defense, you are walking a very fine line in the eye's of the law. You have to know the law in order to stay on the right side of that fine line.