IME at least people who are really into guns are also very serious about gun safety. The problems mostly tend to come from those guys who bought an AR or pistol because it seemed cool who only take their guns out of the case once or twice a year. Unfortunately in a country the size of the US there are a lot of people in the latter group.
WRT to training, I'm of the opinion that if we as a country are going to maintain a relatively unrestricted right to bear arms (which I'm in favor of), the responsible course of action is to have broad gun safety training. Personally I'd make it part of the high school curriculum, just like english or algebra. That's where I start to hear objections from conservatives - they're totally in favor of people seeking training, after all those people probably already have an interest in guns and they're most likely seeking training from a pro-gun source, but they're concerned about broader required training being hijacked by anti-gun groups. And they probably aren't wrong, but I don't think we should ignore addressing the problem just because some people would abuse the solution.
WRT to training, I'm of the opinion that if we as a country are going to maintain a relatively unrestricted right to bear arms (which I'm in favor of), the responsible course of action is to have broad gun safety training. Personally I'd make it part of the high school curriculum, just like english or algebra. That's where I start to hear objections from conservatives - they're totally in favor of people seeking training, after all those people probably already have an interest in guns and they're most likely seeking training from a pro-gun source, but they're concerned about broader required training being hijacked by anti-gun groups. And they probably aren't wrong, but I don't think we should ignore addressing the problem just because some people would abuse the solution.