RESTRICTING BUSINESS FOR NO REASON: How Arkansas is reducing the number of firearms instructors
RESTRICTING BUSINESS FOR NO REASON: How Arkansas is reducing the number of firearms instructors
By David Ferguson
When I hear about efforts to drive someone out of business, it is almost always a bunch of crazy liberals in some other state. For example, New York City keeps working to keep Walmart out; San Antonio is keeping Chick-fil-a out of their airport, colleges are banning Chick-fil-a too; and stricter gun laws have led some firearms manufactures to flee liberal states.
But, Arkansas has joined in to drive people out of business. In our supposedly red state some firearms instructors are leaving the business because of an arbitrary requirement that has no justification.
Firearms instructors who teach the course for a concealed carry license (CCL) now must also offer an enhanced carry license training course each time they offer the CCL course. They must offer it despite it being unlikely many people will be wanting the extra license, and despite the entire enhanced carry law being a sham and a way to accidentally get in deep trouble.
WHY THE ISSUE MATTERS
You may be thinking, why should I care about this issue. Arkansas is a constitutional carry state (open or concealed without a permit)[i] and if I decide to carry a handgun openly or concealed I can do so without a license and you don’t plan to carry a handgun into one of the few gun free zones that the enhanced carry license was supposed to cover.
It should matter to you even if you don’t own a gun because if this law stands next time it may be an arbitrary restriction intended to drive you out of your business. The restriction on firearms instructors is also part of the assault on your Second Amendment rights. Lastly, despite Arkansas being a constitutional carry state, there are still reasons some Arkansans want a CCL and they deserve to have a choice of qualified instructors in their area. For example, some want a CCL because of travel into states that require a license.
WHY WAS THE REQUIREMENT IMPOSED ON FIREARMS INSTRUCTORS?
It is odd that although Arkansas is a Republican state where politicians claim that instead of state control of business the best course is to let the market decide, yet the legislature approved this intervention into the businesses of firearms instructors. I would not be surprised if many legislators did not even know the requirement was in the bill.
Why must instructors teach the enhanced course when offering the CCL course? There is no good reason. There is not even some unfulfilled demand for the enhanced course.
The restriction was passed in 2017. It says firearms instructors who teach a concealed carry license course must teach the enhanced carry course “at all concealed carry training courses.”[ii] But when the Arkansas State Police tried to enforce it, the restriction became a political hot potato. In February 2018 it was reported that only about 70 of roughly one thousand firearms instructors had complied with the new edict.[iii] Many instructors vowed to leave the business if the requirement stood.
Some legislators wanted to repeal the requirement in the 2018 Fiscal Session or in a Special Session of the legislature, but Governor Asa Hutchinson did not want to include it in his call. Governor Hutchinson decided to make the issue go away for a while by having the Arkansas State Police administratively waive the requirement at least through the 2019 session of the legislature. His announcement of the moratorium came only after Jan Morgan, who is a firearms instructor and Fox Business News contributor, announced she would run against Hutchinson for the Republican nomination for governor.
The issue never came up in the 2019 legislative session, and here we are again with the restriction being in full force – a restriction with no discernable purpose.
A CHRISTMAS GREETING FROM THE ASP
Instructors were notified in December 2019 by the Arkansas State Police that they would no longer be allowed to teach the course for a concealed carry license (CCL) unless they passed the test for teaching the enhanced carry course. And, to stay on the list of CCL instructors they had to do so before the end of the year.
Some instructors complied with the requirement, some could not comply because of the lack of facilities needed for the enhanced course, and some instructors quit the business because of the added burden and because the enhanced carry license is a sham to begin with. Among those who are no longer in the business are instructors with decades of experience and instructors who are recognized marksmen.
Jan Morgan
I talked to Jan Morgan about whether she will comply and what actions she might take. Here is a portion of her response. (Her full response is included at the bottom of this article.)
“I’m not complying.
Complying is two fold,
1) passing the exam to retain credentials
2) teaching the enhancedThree legislators told me that if I did not take the exam to retain my credentials, I would be fighting the flawed enhanced legislation from a compromised position. I would appear to be an incompetent, sour grapes instructor who didn’t have the knowledge and firearms training to pass a test. It would give legislators an excuse to say she’s fighting to repeal advanced firearms training because she can’t make the cut.
I made the cut. Acing the exam puts me in the fight from a position of strength. Now I can face legislators as a state police certified instructor who is credentialed to teach a class on a license I’m fighting to eliminate.”
REQUIREMENT IS WORSE BECAUSE ENHANCED CARRY IS A SHAM
To understand how bad the requirement is you need to know it is not just a matter of the requirement being a burden on business. It is also because the enhanced carry law is a sham and many firearms instructors and other Second Amendment advocates fought hard against it.
The enhanced carry license came about as some legislators tried to stop legislation that would have allowed professors and college staff to carry a concealed handgun on campus.
After seeing gun free zones become killing zones in other places, some college professors urged their legislators to write an exception that would allow them to be armed to defend themselves and their students. Legislation was introduced in 2013, but during the legislative process the bill changed to only allow them to carry concealed if the college allowed it.[iv] With colleges being bastions of liberalism everyone knew this meant the legislation would do nothing. No college allowed its professors or staff to carry a concealed handgun on campus.
The professors pushed again in 2017. This time the Arkansas House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing college employees with a CCL to carry concealed on campus. But once the bill went to the Senate Judiciary Committee it was hijacked by an amendment of Senator Jeremy Hutchinson, who is the Governor’s nephew.
Senator Hutchinson tried to kill the bill with many added requirements and restrictions but his amendment did not include the restriction on instructors. Later Senator Trent Garner added Amendment #3 to the bill, which among other things imposed the requirement on firearms instructors.[v]
Enhanced carry was sold as an enhancement of your rights. To do so they added some more government places where the license would apply but at the same time they added more restrictions. Anyone who wanted to use the license on campus would face a minefield of places where they were not allowed to carry.[vi] But that was only the tip of the iceberg. The original purpose of the bill was gutted with a provision allowing colleges to adopt a policy “expressly disallowing the carrying of a concealed handgun in the buildings and on the grounds” of the campus[vii] This little phrase effectively kept the law as it had been with colleges still saying “no.”
When Governor Hutchinson signed the bill he announced he wasn’t done with adding restrictions and another bill would follow.[viii] That legislation was also passed. Although gun rights groups advocates were upset with having even more restrictions, the bill was already an empty promise to the college employees.
ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM
The first step is for legislators to go on record asking Governor Hutchinson to immediately reinstate the moratorium on enforcing the requirement and to support its repeal.
The legislature could address the issue in the Fiscal Session which begins April 8. Some who are opposed to removing the requirement will claim the issue should not come up because the session is for budgets, however, the Constitution clearly envisions the legislature taking up non-budget issues during a Fiscal Session. To limit the number of non-budget issues brought up in a Fiscal Session the Constitution requires the Senate and House of Representatives to first pass a resolution by a 2/3rds vote to allow the non-budget item to be considered.
If politicians wait for the 2021 regular session of the legislature before trying to lift the requirement, instructors who have quit may never return, meanwhile others may quit because of the restriction.
The enhanced carry law is a sham that needs to be repealed and at the same time gun free zone laws need to be reexamined.
We are a RED state, but we keep getting BLUE results.
Jan Morgan’s full response:
“I’m not complying.
Complying is two fold,
1) passing the exam to retain credentials
2) teaching the enhancedThree legislators told me that if I did not take the exam to retain my credentials, I would be fighting the flawed enhanced legislation from a compromised position. I would appear to be an incompetent, sour grapes instructor who didn’t have the knowledge and firearms training to pass a test. It would give legislators an excuse to say she’s fighting to repeal advanced firearms training because she can’t make the cut.
I made the cut. Acing the exam puts me in the fight from a position of strength .
Now I can face legislators as a state police certified instructor who is credentialed to teach a class on a license I’m fighting to eliminate. I will stand there as a credentialed instructor fighting against a program that could put an additional 15 thousand dollars a month in my pocket.
I could have taken the test and taught this class the past two years and made an additional 180 thousand dollars a year for my range.
Instead, on principle I have refused to teach it and turned away thousands of students requesting it the past two years.
Our facility is actually one of the few in the state set up to properly teach the class because of our shooting simulator system that puts students in active shooter scenarios .
I have been promised by those legislators that they fully intended to eliminate the requirement that instructors get credentialed to teach this class and teach it, last session. It fell through the cracks. They have assured me they will work to not only eliminate the requirement but also reinstate instructors who lost their credentials by not passing the test or not taking it.
In the meantime, my goal is much larger than fixing this mistake for instructors.
My ultimate goal is to eliminate the enhanced program.
The initial intent behind it was good. What it eventually became is a nightmare of additional restrictions, contradictions, and way to take more money from people under the guise of more liberty to carry in more places.
The fact is, requiring people to pay for permission to carry, DISCRIMINATES against poor people. It’s the state saying, “your life is of less value if you can’t afford to pay 120 bucks for a class and 100 bucks for our license.” That’s an unethical sham. The state of Arkansas should not be in the business of disarming people who can’t afford to pay the state for a permission slip to carry.
Keeping bearing arms is a RIGHT, not a government issued PRIVILEGE.”
[i] Act 746 of 2013; Taft v Arkansas, 2019 Ark. App. 488 ; http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2019/2019R/Bills/HR1013.pdf; http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2019/2019R/Bills/SR18.pdf;
[ii] A.C.A. § 5-73-322 (g)(2)(A) “(2)(A) Training required under this subsection shall:
(i) Not be required to be renewed;
(ii) Consist of a course of up to eight (8) hours;
(iii) Be offered by all training instructors and at all concealed carry training courses; and
(iv) Cost no more than a nominal amount.
[iii] https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/feb/01/70-trainers-certified-under-new-gun-law/
[iv] http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2013/2013R/Acts/Act226.pdf
[v] Senate Amendment 3 to HB1294 “Training under this subsection shall be offered by all training instructors and at all concealed carry training courses.” http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2017/2017R/Amendments/HB1249-S3.pdf
[vi] http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2013/2013R/Acts/Act226.pdf
[vii] A.C.A. § 5-73-322 (c)(1) “A licensee may possess a concealed handgun in the buildings and on the grounds of a private university or private college unless otherwise prohibited by this section or § 5-73-306 if the private university or private college does not adopt a policy expressly disallowing the carrying of a concealed handgun in the buildings and on the grounds of the private university or private college.”
[viii] http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2017/2017R/Acts/Act859.pdf
