Why You Can't Get Your Wife a Carry Permit
I've been meaning to write an essay on this for a while; just haven't gotten around to it. A poster over on the
Forum gave me a push recently, over a story about a very polite, suburban Minnesota woman who had been, quite literally, picked up and thrown into traffic when she stopped to apologize for a bit of bad (not awful, just clumsy) driving.
He titled the posting Reason to Get Your Wife a Permit.
Well, no. You can't get your wife — or anybody else — a carry permit; they have to do it themselves. You can't make many people do much of anything; Abe Lincoln and the Army of the Republic settled that some years ago.
I don't just mean that in a technical sense; I know a fair number of folks (all men, so far) who have very much wanted a loved one (usually a wife, girlfriend, mother or daughter, but in one case a son and in another case a father) or a friend to get a carry permit and carry routinely or under special circumstances to protect themselves.
They can't make them do it. Nobody can. And my own observation is that the harder they push, the harder the resistance. Pushing doesn't work; they can't do that successfully.
You can't make somebody do it, either.
What you can do is make an offer. That's worked some of the time. (Not all; sorry. No guarantees.)
Here's one offer — and while it's oriented toward TCCarry and me, I'm sure there's instructors around who would be happy to do the same, or something similar.
| Here's your script, if you want it: |
| "Look, you know that I have a carry permit, and I carry my handgun most all of the time. You know me, and you know that's not because I'm looking for trouble, but because I don't want me — or you — to get hurt if I can avoid that. It's also why I put on my seatbelt when I drive, and while you do, too, I wouldn't put the car in gear if you didn't.
"But I'm not there all of the time, and stuff happens when it's unexpected. "I'm not asking you to get a carry permit and a handgun. I am asking you to sit through class with me; I enjoyed it the first time, and I'm up for a refresher. "I think it'll be fun, but I can promise you it won't be more than a few hours. I read on his website that Joel has no problem at all with you taking the class and then making up your own mind if you want to do the shooting qualification at all and then go on to get your permit." Here's where you smile and laugh. "Why should he? He gets paid, either way, and he's kind of a showoff and enjoys doing the classes. "I can't promise you that you'll decide to get a permit after all of that, or even go out to the range and do the shooting qualification; I can promise you that you won't be pressured — by Joel, or by me. Up to you. "Willing to give it a try?" |
At that point, take a yes or a no gracefully; if yes, head off to the website and sign up. If no, just shrug and say something like, "okay; the offer's still open."
Folks can always change their minds.
I've been through this a few times. The only time it gets complicated is when the family member/girlfriend has no firearms experience.
Then we can't just go do the range qual after class (I know there are instructors who will; I won't), but have to arrange some basic training (either the evening B2C session, Basic Pistol with Roger and Sue at BPR, or something less formal, depending), and then do a shooting qual later on.
Want to pitch that at someone? Fine by me. Up to you.
Just don't push.
Last modified Friday, 29-Feb-2008 14:28:25 PST.