To get a permit to carry a weapon - no. To be ready to use that weapon - yes!
There are three things a person should do. Shooting under all weather conditions. Shooting and reloading under pressure (time constraints are good). Drawing from a usual carry position and accurately firing under pressure.
Practice, practice, and finally, practice!
The problem is many, many people with carry permits never practice. I was in a required class for a permit in Nevada and there was an older lady with a S&W .38 special revolver that she said she owned for 30-years and had never fired it once...in fact, she didn’t even know that is was a revolver.
I attended a one-day combat handguns course at an academy and it was a fantastic cours. 400-rounds in about 5-hours with many under-loaded magazine reload drills and shoot-no shoot course with walls and doors and life-sized human photo-targets.
I try to shoot at least once a month.
Cheers and keep your finger off the trigger.
Exactly. It actually takes very little time to go over the three things you need to know: basic firearms safety; how to operate your firearm (including cleaning!); and when to draw, when to fire.
What takes time and practice (repetition) is making this second nature. Carry around the house, draw on the cat when he/she is chasing the catnip ball. (there's a moving target for you, and the dog is saying please oh please let it be loaded this time... :-) Or draw on the TV, follow a character... (just don't pull and Elvis)
Oddly enough, I take a different view.
The citizenry have the right to be armed and defend themselves, but that is the entire extent of the equation, in *any* direction. Nothing else should be mandated or required, no matter its perceived importance. And there is some very deep logic in this.
1) The typical citizen is not, nor can they be trained to be, effective with a gun beyond their desire and means. For the typical person, guns are, and should remain, *a* tool to defend themselves if they want. If they see a gun battle in progress, even if armed, their first inclination should be to protect themselves and their families, *not* to involve themselves in the gunfight.
2) A subset of the citizenry are far more capable and willing to involve themselves in more than a defensive role. This means they are willing to on their own, involve themselves in an effort to prevent a crime in process or to perform citizens arrest of a criminal. And good for them, as they do much to protect us all. But for them, voluntary training is important, so should be encouraged, yet not required.
3) The public hire professional LEOs, who still should be thought of as citizens, to protect society all day and night. They are so busy at this, that they *do* need mandatory training to do it properly. Likewise, they have the extra firepower needed in case criminals are heavily armed. Still most of what they do is clean up after the fact.
4) A CC permit is both an active and passive defense, by the latter I mean that offenders become very aware that someone around them *might* be armed, and this makes their criminal activity much harder and dangerous. They can neither know nor assume training or the lack thereof.