From Moms Demand Action:

"Concealed Carry Reciprocity" would force every state to accept other states' concealed carry standards, even states that have weaker standards, or, worse, no standards at all. #StopCCR pic.twitter.com/Eq0a3tzm4Z

— Moms Demand Action (@MomsDemand) July 22, 2018

As Trump would say:

Here is the list of “Acceptable Firearms Training Documentation” required for a Florida CCW:

To qualify for a concealed weapon license, Florida law requires you to submit proof of competency with a firearm. A copy of a Certificate of Completion or similar document from any of the following courses or classes is acceptable:

• Any hunter education or hunter safety course approved by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission or a similar agency in another state;
• Any National Rifle Association firearms safety or training course;
• Any firearms safety or training course or class available to the general public offered by a law enforcement agency, junior college, college, or private or public institution or organization or firearms training school, using instructors certified by the National Rifle Association, the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission, or the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services;
• Any law enforcement firearms safety or training course or class offered for security guards, investigators, special deputies, or any division or subdivision of law enforcement or security enforcement;
• Any firearms training or safety course or class conducted by a state-certified instructor or by an instructor certified by the National Rifle Association.

Update:

Florida does not have a live fire requirement to obtain a CCW permit.

Miguel turned me on to the FL CCW requirements in the application.  Particularly this section:

I was wrong.  The NRA firearms course “must include live fire using a firearm and ammunition as defined in Section 790.001 Florida Statutes in the presence of an instructor”. Section 790.001 simply defines a firearm and ammunition.

The training documentation I submitted for my FL CCW is the certificate from the Florida Hunter’s Safety Course that I took at Boy Scout summer camp, which was the classroom instruction that we sat through in order to use the camp’s rife range.

Going to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website there are a number of ways to earn a Hunter Safety certificate.  The include everything from a Traditional Courses and Skills Day to a Florida Virtual School Outdoor Education Course, but all require some sort of shoot.

Here is where things get more complicated.  The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and 4-H are all approved instructors under the right conditions.

So when I went to Boy Scout camp and got my riflery and shotgun merit badges, all of us Scouts had to sit through the hunter safety course from a Florida Wildlife officer before we could touch a gun, I got my certificate it was because shooting was part of the merit badge requirements.

Florida only specifies “you to submit proof of competency with a firearm” which they define very loosely.  So loosely that shooting a single shot 22 at Scout camp when I was a teenager got me a CCW at 21.

This is why I said that FL didn’t have a live fire requirement.  I didn’t connect my BSA merit badge to my CCW, and since the minimum age to complete the FL hunter safety course is 12 and there is no date on the certificate (not on mine) it seems that shooting a 22 at 4-H camp at 12 is “proof of competency with a firearm” nine years later.

Compare that to Illinois and Nebraska which have very specific live fire qualifications mandated by state law.  I’ve actually shot the Illinois and Nebraska courses and had CCWs from these states as well.

Range Requirements for the Illinois Concealed Carry License are as follows: 
10 shots at a B-27 silhouette target from a distance of 5 yards (15 feet).
10 shots at a B-27 silhouette target from a distance of 7 yards (21 feet).
10 shots at a B-27 silhouette target (shown below) from a distance of 10 yards (30 feet) .

To pass the range qualification portion of your Illinois Concealed Carry License Training, you must hit the silhouette target in the black area, at least 21 out of 30 shoots fired, or a score of at least 70%.  That’s anywhere in the silhouette, not a scoring ring, just in the target.

Range Requirements for the Nebraska Concealed Carry License are as follows: Qualification Course of Fire (Total 30 rounds) – FBI “Q” Target (22″ x 34″) *No time limit*
3 feet – Six (6) rounds
9 feet – Twelve (12) rounds
15 feet – Six (6) rounds
21 feet – Six (6) rounds
** For each distance fire two rounds per command to fire. One repetition must be from a concealed draw, and 70% of bullets fired must hit in the silhouette.  

This must be shot as part of your CCW course.  It has to be done at the same time as the rest of the CCW training.  For Illinois, it was Sunday afternoon after the previous day and a half of training.  In Nebraska, it was the afternoon after the full morning of training.  If you failed the shoot, you had to take the whole course over again.

Nebraska mandates drawing from  concealment.  Both states require it be a handgun.  The intention being that the CCW applicant be able to use the gun he or she intends to carry with some level of competency at the time they are applying for their permit.

Florida is like “Fuck it, did you shoot a rimfire rifle at Scout camp before you were old enough to get your learner’s permit?  That’s good enough for us for a CCW.”

You don’t actually have to prove you have any competency with the handgun you intend to carry.

This actually makes the later part of this post even more relevant.

Now back to the rest of the original post:

Of all the documentations that you can send in, this his one is my favorite:

Other Acceptable Forms of Training Documentation

Documentary evidence of experience with a firearm obtained through participation in an organized shooting competition is also acceptable.

This means that, at least in theory, you can submit documentation of your classification from IDPA or USPSA as proof of competency.

So MDA got their facts wrong on the level of training Florida requires.

Then they bring Alabama (and Georgia and Mississippi) into the mix.

This is the problem with people with a statist mentality.  They think like bureaucrats.  Everything must be quantifiable and acceptable by a government employee behind a desk with no real world knowledge or experience.

Just about everyone I know who has a CCW is a regular shooter of sorts, but this is not something that a desk jockey bureaucrat can quantify.  All the target shooting you do at the range counts for nothing because someone with the approval of government didn’t sign a pre-formatted piece of paper.

A course I took at Boy Scout camp when I was 16 demonstrated my “competency with a fire” enough for my my CCW when I was 21 because of the fairy dust of bureaucratic approval.

This is the kind of bureaucracy vs. reality that inspired Kafka to write.

This is the firearms qualification for FL law enforcement.

That’s not a difficult challenge by any standard, 80% on a man size B-21 target at 7 yards.  But it’s been approved by goverment so a police officer who shoots this once a year is a expert.

This is Travis Tomasie, captain of Team Remington formerly of Team PARA.

He is a USPSA Grand Master and National Champion.  He’s also an Alabama resident and a hell of a nice guy.

He hasn’t taken the FL training class so by MDA standards is totally unfit and too dangerous to carry concealed in Florida.

It’s not that they know anything about guns or shooters.  It’s that they think like statist bureaucrats, and anything that hasn’t been approved by a committee can’t be trusted or considered.

Update:

So when the person over at MDA wrote “Florida requires safety training and live fire experience to carry a hidden, loaded handgun in public” they assumed (like I did) that FL required something like Nebraska or Illinois that the “training and live fire experience“ was related to the loaded, hidden handgun.  I wonder what they would think if they found out that sufficient “training and live fire experience” could be obtained by a pimply faced, pubescent at summer camp.  I’m pretty sure if that understood that, they’d shit a brick.

Instead, MDA is saying that Alabama’s non existent training requirements are a danger but Florida’s “one summer at Scout camp with a 22 rifle” is less dangerous because it has the magic sprinkling of fairy dust approval of a bunch of bureaucrats.

I will stick to my guns about this point.  There are many experienced shooters that are far better and more knowledgeable than the minimum requirements of any state CCW.  It is typical bureaucratic thinking to assume everyone will only achieve the minimum set standard.  Without the blessing of a bureaucrat you are just dangerous garbage.

Consider that while you think about this:

Kellogg’s had to recall Honey Smacks because of salmonella.

When was the last time you heard of anybody getting salmonella from a a couple of kids who set up an illegal, unlicensed lemonade stand?

Maybe, just maybe, a bureaucrat’s stamp of approval isn’t a guarantee of safety and the lack of a stamp isn’t a guarantee of danger.