It is safe to say that with very rare exceptions, the majority of the print and broadcast mainstream media are very liberal, very anti-gun, are unfamiliar with firearms. Sadly, many are actually proud of their ignorance. This became readily apparent again when they covered the signing of Kansas’ new “constitutional carry” bill into law by Gov. Sam Brownback.

Bryan Lowry’s news article covering the signing for the Kansas City Star was commendable for its balance.

Kansans soon can carry concealed weapons without permits or training under a bill signed by Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday.

The new law, which kicks in July 1, makes Kansas the sixth state to allow “constitutional carry.” It will allow Kansans 21 and older to carry concealed firearms regardless of whether they have obtained a permit.

Training still will be required for anyone who wants to carry a concealed gun in the 36 states that accept Kansas permits.

Brownback touted the importance of training, explaining that his youngest son took a hunter safety course this past week.

Lowry’s article must have been very difficult to write when his fellow Star stablemate, editorial writer Yael T. Abouhalah, was presumably screaming as if he was on fire when he penned this “blood in the streets” column.

The push by gun-loving bullies to put weapons in the hands of almost anyone, almost everywhere and almost anyhow they can continued Thursday in ultra-conservative Kansas and even in liberal Massachusetts.

▪ Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday signed a bill that will allow residents to stroll around with concealed guns without any permit or any training in how to use the weapons.

This is pretty much the definition of madness but, hey, that Second Amendment is twisted and warped by gun backers to support all kinds of questionable actions.

Abouhalah’s column is as hysterical as it is lazy and predictable.

The simple fact of the matter is that the abbreviated training covered in typical concealed carry course is academic in nature, with no firearms training occurring at all.

The live-fire qualifications (again, a test without any firearms training) are designed to be incredibly easy to pass. Students fire at stationary targets at extremely close range with either zero time pressure, or generous time limits (depending on state).

Actual, formal firearms training courses put hundreds to thousands of rounds downrange over the course of several days to several weeks, building from a very basic level up through increasingly complex evolutions. Good instructors in these courses will not only build your skills, but will explain why you do each and every thing that you do during the course of that training.

If you do what they tell you to do during these courses, you will increase your skills, but you still have to go home and continually apply what you’ve learned with dry-fire and live-fire training to keep those skills sharp.

In concealed carry courses, you fire (at most) a box of ammunition to judge whether you are minimally competent to draw a firearm and discharge it before the sun goes down, into a target so close and large that you almost can’t miss it.

That isn’t training, and it doesn’t save lives.

I’ve yet to encounter a single person involved in a shooting either as a shooter or an investigator who credited a concealed carry course with helping them survive the encounter.

The course required to get a concealed carry permit doesn’t magically make someone competent with a handgun, and the cries of “blood in the streets” when such a superfluous requirement goes away are absurd.

The more than you apply actual knowledge to the absurdity of concealed carry requirements in the United States, the more self-evident it becomes that concealed carry classes don’t save lives.

It’s time to return to constitutional carry nationwide.