Laurie Roberts

opinion columnist

Let’s see, we won’t pay to fund universities in an effort to boost Arizona’s economy. We won’t pay to eliminate for some the nation’s deepest cuts to our public schools.

We won’t even join KidsCare even though the cost of the health insurance program for children in this, one of the states with the highest rate of uninsured kids, is picked up by the federal government.

Yet one of the Legislature’s top leaders wants the state to pay to train Arizonans in how to use a gun.

Yep, it seems House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro wants to give a tax credit to cover the cost of safety training in order to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

“It’s promoting safety,” the Litchfield Park Republican told Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer. “Law enforcement has told us time and time again that the first line of defense are those that carry CCW permits.”

House Bill 2494 would allow a gun owner to deduct the cost of firearms training, up to $80, from state income taxes.

In a way, it makes sense to at least try to entice gun owners to actually know how to use that heat they’re packing. It used to be that Arizona required people to take a class to learn when and how to safely use a firearm before they could carry a concealed weapon. But in 2010, the Arizona Legislature, in its wisdom, decreed that henceforth, no training would be required to pack a Glock in your pants.

You can now carry a concealed weapon in Arizona without so much as a minute of safety training.

And doesn’t that make sense?

While I appreciate Montenegro’s desire to offer an incentive to get gun owners trained, I'm wondering why taxpayers should have to underwrite the cost of it. Still his goal is a worthy one and so I humbly offer a suggestion -- one that would cost us nothing.

How about simply reinstating the training requirement?