New York city isn’t the only left-leaning center in the state. Albany, NY is as well, which means much of Albany County tends to be as well. Not as badly as the Big Apple, mind you, but it’s bad enough.

So when we hear about somewhere like Albany County creating some kind of program about guns, we tend to brace ourselves.

Yet it seems that this time, they’re doing something that’s actually smart.

The Albany County Legislature is taking steps aimed at preventing gun violence.

Legislators passed a resolution Monday night establishing the “DISCOVER” program. That stands for “Detailed Instruction Supporting Community Violence Education and Reduction.”

The program is in partnership with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office. It will focus on supporting firearm education and training for legal gun owners.

Officials also hope this will reduce illegal guns in the community, though I’m skeptical it could ever do such a thing.

Look, I don’t trust public officials as a general rule and I especially don’t trust them on guns when they’re centered in an anti-gun area.

That said, this isn’t the worst thing ever by any stretch of the imagination.

Obviously, what’s being taught in these courses will have a major impact on whether this is a particularly good thing or not, but I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.

After all, even if it’s just safety training, that’s still a win.

I grew up in a time and place where such training was passed down from parent to child. My dad started teaching me gun safety before I was old enough to even begin to comprehend what I was learning, which means it had years upon years of reinforcement before I ever handled a live firearm.

Yet that wasn’t the case in many places and isn’t the case in many more today. A lot of people “learn” about guns through television and movies and all the horrors that entails. They need training and most won’t really know where else to get it.

Providing that training is a good thing for the community, especially if it includes things like the use of force laws there in New York. After all, that’s one of those areas where people get it wrong all the time and where they get it wrong could land someone in prison.

So yeah, I am actually applauding a decision made in Albany County, New York. I didn’t think I ever would do such a thing, but here we are.

I don’t see this reducing violent crime, however.

Violent criminals are rarely people who are intending to be law-abiding. Yes, it happens, as we’ve seen far too often, but it’s not the standard. They know they’re criminals and they’re not likely to be dissuaded from that by a training class for gun owners.

I support this class, at least in principle, but let’s also be realistic about who it’s going to impact and what it can and can’t do. This is important because if we’re not, we’ll see a good program go down because it’s not producing the results the delusional thought it should.