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There are safety ratings and law suits and medical board reviews etc for medical errors.
With guns there is zero effort and oversight.
Well, that is simply not true.
For one, Obama did pass a law regarding background checks for a person's mental health status, which Trump rescinded some time ago. Not to mention all the other regulations there are on gun ownership in many states.
But I think the biggest onus at this time is on the instructors who instruct folks on firearm safety and licensing. They are the second-line of defense (behind background checks) on determining who can and cannot get licensed to own/carry firearms.
They have the discretion to say yes or no when issuing their training certificates.
Why would an instructor approve one over the other? Maybe that other person exhibits behavior that the instructor finds "suspicious." Safety-wise, that other person may be just really bad at following the three (or 4, it should be four) cardinal rules of safe firearm handling.
I think the states are complicit in this problem regarding the whole issue, because as per instructor/safety guidelines, each state has the ability to determine whether or not LIVE-FIRE training is required for the issuance of the certificate.
I think this is very bad. Live-fire training should be required for ANY sort of licensure/certification.
That is something that drives me NUTS about MA, supposedly one of the most regulated states on guns and CCW. There is no live-fire requirement at the state level for licensure. (Well, there wasn't 8 years ago, the last time was in that scene).
As an instructor, you can witness how a person handles the firearm, and discern their behavior when they are using live ammo. It can be analogized in a way, I think, with trading... Like how a person handles an airsoft-gun (sim) vs. live ammo (real money).
"Thorny" is like the least effective word ever to describe this issue facing us, as a country, in this day and age, but it is the only word I can think of at this time to describe it.