The Importance of Gun Safety Education with Chris Marvin

I'm State Senator Michael Moore. Join me for in-depth conversations with local newsmakers about the latest happenings in the Commonwealth and beyond. This podcast takes a closer look at the news of the day with community leaders, local politicians, and fierce advocates at the heart of the issues to break down what it all means for you and your community. From Beacon Hill to the heart of the Commonwealth, I'll be lifting the curtain on the State House to help base status understand how the government is working for them. This is More Than Politics. Welcome to More Than Politics with State Senator Michael Moore. Glad to have everyone here again today and we got an exciting topic today. Before I introduce him, I just want to go over some legislation that the Massachusetts legislature and the government passed back in 2024. And I think a lot of you find this very interesting. It deals with live fire training in the acts of -- so was signed by Governor Marra Haley on July 25th, 2024. So it was passed by the legislature just before that. It represents a significant change in our gut safety legislation. The legislation passed. It was a response to a state Supreme Court -- excuse me, a federal Supreme Court decision in the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, verse Bruin, which limits the state's authority to enact gun safety measures. This law updates the Massachusetts firearms law by tackling concerns like untraceable ghost guns, 3D printed firearms, strengthening the red flag law, and improving public safety by requiring that firearm safety courses include live fire training as part of their curriculum. As part of the law, an individual applying for a new concealed carry weapons permit Massachusetts must submit a basic firearm safety certification alongside their application, and that will be starting in 2027. Now, passing this, Massachusetts joins 17 other states that have some form of a live fire training requirement as part of its permitting or licensing process. Those other states, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas. That's right, everyone. Texas also has this. I have with me today and maybe help clarify the question I have on this. Well, actually, many questions. I have with me today Chris Marvin and Chris is a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot and medically retired US Army officer with more than seven years of active service. He's a founding member of every town's veterans advisory council and he'll he can explain what that the veteran advisory council does and was crucial in the development of train spot. Train spot is a new comprehensive approach to firearm safety training created by veterans. It is made up of online courses, perspective, first time in seasoned gun owners. Chris, thank you for being here today on this issue and I know how controversial gunitions can be and thank you with all your with your all your background realizing the need for this this type of training. Yeah, it's my pleasure and I hope that what we're doing with some of this training we'll talk about this is making things a little bit less controversial and kind of meeting people where they are, making sure that we're as safe as we can as a society with guns. So hopefully that's what you're listening over here about here about today. Well, let's hope they focus on that. So how long have you been with so it's so actually Chris, so I guess if you just want to talk about your background first and just so the audience knows your experience. Yeah, always always happy to start by talking about myself. I appreciate that. You mentioned I'm a black alcalacopter pilot who I was in the army and I actually come from a pretty long familial line of military service on the sun, grandson and great grandson of combat army army combat veterans and you know, so service is an important part of my family tradition. I was wounded in Afghanistan about more than 20 years ago now and that kind of set me on a trajectory to to work in the veteran space and working on a lot of times we think about the veteran space is how are we helping veterans and the work that I've done is more about how veterans help society. I believe the veterans are trained leaders, team builders and problem solvers who should come in and sort of get into the next and crannies of of everyday life and help figure out how we can make a better. And so now professionally as a consultant, I work on that exact paradigm. I bring veterans and their voices and their stories and their experience and their credibility to important issues. One of those issues is certainly gun violence prevention. And so for the better part of the decade, I've been consulting to every town for gun safety, which is the nation's largest gun violence prevention organization and helping them build a veteran engagement strategy. A veterans advisory council that helps oversee that that strategy and execute on it and a bunch of other programs where veterans and their voices are really useful and again credible towards the messages that we're trying to share. Quick question on every town. No. So every town say one of the largest gun violence advocacy groups against. Now they're not opposed to gun ownership. Correct. They just exactly. Yeah. So I think that that's that's always crucial. I just want to clarify that is we get into this that we're not. Yeah. You know, look, honestly, we'll start right there because it is one of the criticisms that the gun lobby often offers to all gun violence prevention groups. And I think it's it's sort of patently false. I don't I don't remember any time in my lifetime that we've come anywhere close to who we're feeling second amendment. And and I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. And so, you know, there's been certainly Supreme Court cases that have changed the interpretation of the second amendment. And I think that various groups have different opinions on, you know, how well founded the decisions in those court cases are. But as far as, you know, gun ownership, you know, every town has always been, let me think about the name every town for gun safety. Very inclusive, right? Like we're talking about, you know, all the towns, all the states, all the cities, we're talking about, you know, red and blue and left and right and all of it. And and then sort of focused on gun safety focused on this idea that that it's important sort of like I learned in the military. It's important to be safe with our firearms because, you know, they are a very, very lethal weapon. And we have upwards of 50,000 gun deaths in this country each year. And so we'll talk later about the new transport program. But that that was I think a great example of every town maybe even moving a little bit to demonstrate that they want to meet gun owners where they are. And there's a couple things I said about this. And one of them is that, you know, if you don't own a gun, it's actually hard to practice gun safety. Now we're not saying that people should go out by guns so that they could be safe with their guns. Your way safer without a gun in your homes statistically. But there's 400 million guns in this country. And so every town certainly wants to meet gun owners where they are, wants to understand that, you know, we're not going to put that toothpaste back in the tube anytime soon. And nor do we are we trying to nor do we want to. And what we've learned is that there are so many gun owners out there who have actually been inappropriately pegged to the gun lobby and an agenda of all guns for any person all the time with no restrictions, right? Most gun owners actually would subscribe a lot sooner to a platform of, yeah, let's have guns and let's be very, very safe with them. Let's keep our kids safe. Let's keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Let's practice proper safety protocols. And so we're learning more and more as we reach out into the gun owner community that not only do we feel like we represent them really well. But we're giving them a message that makes more sense to them as gun owners than what they were getting from the NRA or USCCI or any of those organizations. You know, and I can remember that years ago when I'm talking decades ago, just for us dealing with us sportsmen, we have hunter safety programs here in Massachusetts. So and it obviously goes over the safe handling of shotguns and rifles during when you're hunting. So to me, this kind of corresponds to the whole importance of making sure someone has the proper education on how to use the firearm safely. And I should say, just as timing-wise, sadly, when the reason I brought this up, sadly, we just had, I don't know if you saw in the news, but we just had the shooting in Rhode Island at Providence Brown University, but we had the detragic deaths there. I don't want people thinking that, you know, it's a tragic event, but that doesn't tie over into what we're going to talk about here, about, you know, legal gun owners being trained properly, knowing how to handle a firearm shooting properly. So yeah, look, I think there's there's sportsmen in every state in the country, right? Who, who, who, who enjoy hunting and, and their ability to handle those firearm safely is actually crucial to their ability to, you know, not only move as they're moving through the terrain that they're hunting on, but also to, to shoot and be successful as a hunter. So I think that that training is really important. And then we will move into the, you know, all the folks who own guns and might have a gun for self protection, protection of their home or family. You know, they are the ones who we find can often, it's very rare that a hunter will like have a gun and not have gone through some sort of training. Even if it's informal, even if it's with a family member, right? Whether it's required by law or not. But a lot of times you find people who got by guns to protect their house, and then that gun is, you know, kind of up in the left hand side of the bedroom closet in a shoebox with a smattering of bullets and the person's never taken into the range. That person's never really figured out how to take it apart and put it back together. And, you know, they're certainly not maintaining it or cleaning it properly. And so we know that those guns and the hands of those people can, can be more dangerous than guns and the hands of people who are, you know, trained and experienced users. And so we're trying to offer opportunities for folks like that to get a little more education. And it's great to see, you know, states kind of coming on board and saying, hey, we, we as a society, we as voters, we as legislators and the representatives of the people, we actually believe that too. And we want to keep our folks safe. And we want to pass legislation that requires some sort of training at the thresholds of entering gun ownership or learning to conceal carry. So that's really important. Okay. So before we get into the program for you to talk about, again, I just want to point and you had pointed those earlier, this is not a red or blue issue. Some of the states, the states that have passed this, we've already have this requirement is Florida, Texas, some of the more notable red states. So, you know, Massachusetts with this development, this program, we're not going a little too far with this. But if you can just let's talk about your program, what does it entail? I'm sure the listeners are dying to hear. Yeah. And I'll say, first I can vouch for Texas. That's where I got my concealed carry permit and and it definitely requires live fire training as part of the as part of the program. Yes. So, train smart is this brand new gun safety training program, you know, from every time for gun safety. And I think the core element here is it is it is the fundamentals of the program are based on the way that we as a nation teach our military members to use firearms. So veterans came in and worked with every town. That's part of my role here making sure that we had knowledgeable veterans who were who were sharing the lessons that our profession of arms has taught us about how to properly operate firearms and how to be safe with them. And so we launched train smart in the tail end of 2025. It's only been around for a handful of months now. We launched online. We launched online because we wanted to be in every state, right? We again, every town wants to be reached as many folks as possible. And so we have an online curriculum, right? Which doesn't involve any handling of a firearm or or live fire. That will come later. But it's actually where people should start. And so when we're in the military, whether you enter through basic training or through maybe one of the military academies or something like that, ROTC, you have an initial entry phase where you're experiencing firearms for the first time. And typically, depending on a branch, it could differ. But typically, that's going to be days if not weeks of handling firearms without ever having live ammunition. You're going to have the weapon, you're going to learn how to disassemble and reassemble it, how to clean it, how to maintain it care for it. You're going to learn the fundamentals of the different components of the weapon and then the fundamentals of marksmanship. You're going to do a lot of dry fire exercises, meaning having the gun potentially on a range or in a safe space, again, no ammunition nearby and just kind of click in the trigger, hearing that dry fire and understanding what that feels like, etc, etc. And the drills and the exercises go on and on to familiarize young soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen with their weapons. And so I think when we want to start there with civilians, we're going to start with the basics of the fire. We're going to start with this is a gun. This is the trigger. This is the trigger guard. This is the, you know, the barrel. This is the butt. This is the stock. Whatever we're talking about pistol, rifle, etc. And I think that really helps people. So our first course is actually about 90 minutes long offered online. It can be done with a live instructor or it can be done asynchronously as a on demand course. And it's meant for people who either are considering buying a firearm for the first time, or maybe just bought their first firearm. And they really need to know the basics. First one question. We'll walk them through those basics. One quick question. Are you teaching a handgun rifle shotgun? What which or all of you above? Yeah. So for these courses, it covers basically any type of firearm you could buy because we're literally talking about maybe which firearm is right for you. And so if the reason you're going to buy a firearm is because you want to get into hunting deer, we're going to talk, you know, the instructor could answer your questions by talking about the right hunting rifle. A lot of times we're focused on pistols and all of our customers are interested in having pistols in their home. And so that, that's often a, we lean in that direction because we know that the hunters are out there and there's a lot of very specific hunting training. I think we eventually like to expand into hunter safety courses, hunter specific training that would allow us to focus on those weapons. But in this initial course, it's really any kind of rifle or pistol or shotgun that you could buy. And we actually tell the difference between a rifle little pistol and a shotgun because I guarantee you you have listeners out there right now that I've heard all those terms but don't necessarily know what the difference is or why they're different or what it means. And there's a lot of things you need to know both for the functionality of the weapon and sort of the marksmanship aspect of it, but also the safety aspects of rifles, shotguns, and pistols can be different. And so we demonstrate that in this first course. We also teach people different types of secure storage, right, which changes with the type of gun you have. And so we go from, you know, the trigger locks to the cable locks to the lock boxes to the gun safe and kind of everything in between, making sure people know what options are out there. We have an expansive course. It's like a second course after that, which is inclusive of almost everything in the first course. This is the course I would, you know, want anybody who's curious about this to take. It's about two and a half hours long, also offered online, also either with a live instructor or on demand. And it covers all those basic safety aspects, but it also covers a lot around suicide prevention, which is crucial if you're going to bring a gun into your home, not just for yourself, but for other people who have access to it potentially. And then it actually gives every single person in every single state that takes this a deep dive on their state laws. So someone in Massachusetts who's taking this would give a video sent to them that goes deep into the Massachusetts law. It would let them know all of the most crucial things that a gun owner in Massachusetts would need, including how to transport your gun. How does it need to be stored in your car? Where can it be or can it be if you're driving to the range? This changes state by state. You know, what are the laws about concealed carrying? Where can you carry a concealed weapon, et cetera, et cetera. And so I think that that state-specific thing is also something that's really, really useful and we're proud to have worked really hard to get all 50 states covered. And so that I'll explain the first two courses. The first course is called the Smart Guide to Buying a Gun, right? So those new or prospective gun owners. And that second course, which kind of overlaps, has all the information from the first plus a bunch more, is the Smart Guide to Owning a Gun. And so we think that any gun owner at any point would benefit from taking that course. We have a third course online. I'll just round it out for you. The third course online is actually an eight-hour course where we dive really deep into marksmanship. And you know, you can do a lot to teach marksman. As we prove in the military, we do a lot to teach marksmanship without going to a range. And we're able to do that online as well. We know that so many people are getting, you know, everything they do today from fixing their car to cook in a meal. They're learning on YouTube. They're learning online. And so we're bringing the compliment to that. We know that people are definitely going on YouTube to learn about guns, learn about marksmanship. And so we wanted to have that online component of a deeper dive marksmanship training. That eight-hour course is typically broken down into two or three sessions with a live instructor. And you can learn a heck of a lot, even if you're an experienced marksman. I think you can learn a heck of a lot from from that online course. The most important part about these courses is we try to make them really financially accessible to folks. The 20 bucks for the first course, the other one that's about twice as long is $40. And then that eight-hour course is $100. And so we're not trying to break people's bank or make a ton of money. We're a nonprofit that's dedicated to safety. We're also not selling guns. We're not selling insurance. We're not selling memberships, right? So when you ask us, should we buy a gun? We'll give it to you straight. We don't care. We don't care if you buy a gun or not. We want you to make the right decision for yourself and for your family. And so we're not motivated by any sort of secondary or ulterior motives. And so our primary motive is proper gun operations and high levels of gun safety. So that's kind of where we are with this new transplant program. So have you been adopted by any of the 17 states as a approved curriculum? So where we are is actually currently, as we're recording this online only, but on the verge of launching our live fire course. And it's at that point that we'd be able to take that live fire course and then get it approved by various states who have these requirements. So the answer now is no. But the answer in the coming year is we hope to be as adopted by as many of them as we can. And a lot of times, it'll actually involve an instructor in the state who knows the requirements, teaches to the requirements. They'll come in and they'll become trained smart, certified and they'll start giving our course, which we believe in most states will be more robust. So in a lot of states, they'll be like, okay, great, I'm checking all the boxes and if not, if there's one or two boxes that are very state-specific, then those instructors just pull that into the course along with the rest of the trained smart course. And then those instructors who are already offering similar courses will just have a more robust or trained smart branded live fire instruction course, a basic level one course that they can provide for potential gut owners or people who require training for any type of other state requirement. And so we're hoping to dive in with those states and I know that you mentioned Massachusetts law goes into effect in 2027. I would think that by that time we might be, we would hopefully be able to integrate with Massachusetts in the state law and the, you know, the firearms instructors who are going to be carrying out that training in the state. So have you piloted this with any gun owners or people looking for gun to be trained in gun ownership and use to get their opinion of the training? Of the live fire training specifically, yes, we've started our training trainers basically. So we haven't given the course to what you would maybe say that every day gone under yet. We've actually given the course to a bunch of people who are professional firearms trainers and they love it. And I'll say I've also spent a lot of time at conferences talking about transpire. Most talking about the online courses that are available today. And you know, we'll go into those exhibit halls and we'll set up a table for a couple of days and we went to the VFW this year. We went to a couple of other conferences. And you know, the VFW got all these veterans walking through really interested in talking about guns and there hasn't been a conference I've been to where I didn't have multiple people come up to the table, learn about what we're doing and say, you know, I'm an NRA certified pistol rifle instructor. This, this train smart stuff, this is what we need to be teaching. Now these are usually veterans, right? So they learned before they were NRA certified, they learned, you know, how to use a firearm in the military. They see the familiarity, the idea that we at Trainsmart have followed along with sort of the way our nation's profession of arms teaches firearms use and safety. And so we have these folks telling us all the time, I need to get certified in this. You know, we're not trying to cannibalize anything, you know, well, we'll take any instructor new or experience that the wants to come and learn the right way and they really started at the beginning. And so it is, I guess, humbling, certainly complimentary when we have these these experience instructors telling us that what we've built is the right thing to keep folks safe and to help them, you know, use their firearms the way they want to use their firearms. Because I think that nobody out there wants their firearm to use for an accidental shooting, you know, a mass shooting, a school shooting, and a suicide, nobody wants their gun to be used for that. And if we just got to the point where we could avoid those types of things and certainly interpersonal violence too and domestic violence is a place where firearms are a big problem. We're moving away from that and making sure that guns are only utilized in the places where they're truly useful. And whether that's hunting or you know, get a little bit of peace in mind to protect your home, we support all those decisions that gun owners have made. We just want them to avoid the tragedies. So you actually answered, well, partially answered a question I was going to have for you. And when they say this, I'm only asking that the reason that today everyone draws a line, you're either with us or against us. So you mentioned that you've had NRA instructors has gun organizations, gun owner organizations like the NRA or other types that the maybe out there have, are they endorsing your type of your your training program in other gun safety organizations? Are they endorsing this or you guys on your own right now? We're definitely on our own because we're on a different plane. I mean, I think that's that's actually very clear and responsible gun owners will hear this differently than those who have blindly adhered themselves to everything that the gun lobby talks about, right? So there's a lot of different kinds of gun owners out there. And as you mentioned, we don't want to draw a line. I agree. When a line is drawn, I think what happens is a lot of people, it reminds me of India and Pakistan, right? They just drew a line there and all of a sudden there's some people on one side of the line saying, well, I don't want to be on this side of the line and you know, Hindus and Muslims and I want to be on the other side of the line. So when we draw those lines artificially, we put people on one side of the line when they don't necessarily want to be there. And certainly a line between gun owners and non-gun owners would be an inappropriate line. It would it would take for granted that there are gun owners that don't prioritize safety. And in fact, there are and I would actually argue, I don't have numbers on this, but I would argue that it's most, most gun owners prioritize safety. Most gun owners are actually already behaving and living in the most many trainers are already training this way. The problem is it's not formalized. The problem is that that's not what the gun lobby is doing. The gun lobby cares mostly about selling memberships, selling guns because a lot of time the trainers also, you know, you're in the back of a gun shop and the front of the gun shop they're selling guns. And so if you ask, you know, 90% of the trainers out there, "Hey, should I buy a gun?" They don't say, "Well, what would you use it for? Where would you store it? Who else lives in your home? Is there any mental health issues we need to think about?" They'll go through the background check that's required by law. And beyond that, they'll be like, "Yes, of course you should buy a gun." You know, just like if you walk into a pizza shop and say, "Should I buy a pizza?" The guy's going to say, "Yes, buy a pizza." Because he sells pizzas and that's how he makes his living. So when you get your training from a guy who makes his living also selling guns, that's what he's going to also sell you. Same with USCCA sells insurance. They're going to tell you all the time you need, you know, what we refer to as murder insurance, right? Something where like if you shoot somebody, "Hey, we're going to make sure that you're covered." You know, forget the fact that you just, you know, took away a human life and that's a moral burden on anybody. That's something in the military we know. But you know, "Hey, you need to call your insurance agent here and figure out how we can help defend you." The question about competition is interesting. We are a competitor to other trainings. That's fine. We'll readily admit that we're, we believe we have a better product in a free market and we have a better gun safety product than the gun lobby's offering. And do they criticize us? Yes. And that is the best compliment they could pay us. If the gun lobby, which I think often offers poultry training, not every instructor, by the way, there's, I'm going to be very clear. If you're an enterprise certified instructor out there and you're offering top-tier training, I believe that's true and I support you. I think that what if you looked at the standards that were forced upon you by the person who certified you as a trainer, their standards aren't as high as your standards, right? So what we believe is that is our training is better. And every time they criticize us, we see that, right? It's just like, you know, Pepsi criticizes Coke and Coke criticizes Pepsi. What we saw actually, this is really funny. Before we launched our online training, before anybody was ever able to take it, one of our representatives went to the National Conference for State Legislature, Legislatory Tours, which I don't know if you've been or not, but I am sure many of your colleagues, yeah. So we were at that conference. We gave a little, you know, we had a room where we talked about this upcoming training. And I believe it was one of the organizations was in, one of the gun organizations was in there and they heard a little bit about the training. They knew that it existed. And then they wrote a blog taking it down and telling everyone how horrible it was. You know what's hilarious? It didn't, it didn't, it didn't, the offering didn't exist to the public yet. The dude who wrote that had positively not taken the course because nobody had taken the course, but he knew without taking it how bad it was. And for us, that is a giant win, right? We know that they, that they are scared of us offering a more substantial training than, than what they have out there. That one has been the standard for decades. And that's why a train smart exists. That's why we wanted to create it because gun owners deserve a more substantial training. Perspective gun owners deserve a fair assessment of whether or not they should own a gun. And we were able to offer that and offer it at reasonable prices and offer it, you know, certainly with the online course in a way they could reach everybody. And so hopefully soon offer it in a way that the life air course can reach a lot more Americans as well. Okay, great. So listen, a matter of time, but before we end, you said the price, the prices were 20, 40, and 100. Will the actual life fire training be the same? And if that's, and also how do people contact you? And I get this information on pricing. Yes. I do not have a price for the life fire training. And it's most likely going to end up varying by the instructor who gets it to you. So we'll have instructors who are part of our cadre who have received the training, who will receive recurring training as well. Again, unlike the gun lobby who trains you once and then you're set for life. These guys will keep up with standards. They'll probably, we'll give them a window. And in that window, they'll be able to price it. That's a to be determined right now. But yeah, for folks who are interested in getting the first taste of this, getting the online training, whether it's that one or two hour course or that eight hour course, we encourage you to go to trainsmartgunsafety.org, you know, all one word trainsmartgunsafety.org. We hope that just incentivizes a few folks to become safe through with their guns or to learn more about the gun they're thinking about by it. Oh, thank you. I hope everyone takes advantage of, you know, the opportunity to get a gun training, learn how to utilize their firearm safely. And thanks for doing all this work. And thanks for coming on. And I want to thank you. I want to thank all the listeners again for listening to more than politics with State Senator Michael Moore. And Chris have a great holiday. And to all those listeners have a great holiday. Thank you.