Utah Concealed Firearms & Training
Utah BCI, the issuing agency has released the process for Provisional Permits. The short and sweet answer is, IT EXACTLY the same process as a 21 y.o. and over permit. Same class, same material, same process. 
Please share with your friends and family if they are looking for a permit. If you feel the course exceed your expectations, I would appreciate the referrals.
Thanks again and let me know if you have any questions, now or in the future,
I have inundated with questions regarding the Provisional Permit for those 18-20 years old.
We have not been provided any information from Utah BCI in regards to how provisional permits will be issued. Once we are provided the information, our homepage will be updated.
With that said, since the context of the material will not be changing, it is our belief that the process will be exactly the same as those that are over 21 years old. We suspect that the only difference will come in the look of the ‘Provisional Permit’ with an expiration date of the persons 21st birthday. Otherwise, the process will remain the same. Maybe a change or two on the application to indicate the provisional status.
It is our recommendation that if some you know is interested in the Provisional Permit to sign up for a course to reserve your seat and then allow BCI time to disseminate the process to the instructors. This way when it goes into effect, on or about May 20th, we will good to go. There will be a rush and classes will fill very quickly.
Recently, there was a shooting during a traffic stop and a concealed carry permit holder. The full story can be found here. I wanted to take this opportunity to revisit some of the best practices when encountering law enforcement.
First, most firearms owners will rarely find themselves faced with a situation which requires using that firearms for self-defense. However, it is much more likely that if you carry your firearm on a regular basis, you will come into contact with a law enforcement officer during a minor incident, such as traffic stop or accident. But what do you do about your firearm when this happens?
Before I offer a little advice in making sure a minor encounter does not escalate unnecessarily, it is important to remember that every jurisdiction is different in terms of how they handle these encounters.
Remain calm. Being stopped for any reason can be both stressful and a cause for being nervous. The officer conducting the stop knows this and expects a certain amount of stress; what they do not expect is to see you sweating unnecessarily. Sit still and wait for the officer to approach 10 &n 2 piston on the steering wheel; if it’s nighttime, turn on the dome light so he/she can clearly see you as they do so. NEVER reach for anything, especially your firearm.
This is always a major point of debate but my advice is to tell them if:
1) Asked by the officer is there are any weapons in the vehicle. Just blurting out you have a firearm does not serve any purpose but to escalate the situation. If asked, be forthcoming.
2) If it will come into play (immediate possession) during the traffic stop. When the officer approaches keep your hands on the steering wheel and inform him/her about your firearm. Ask them how they would like to proceed and follow their directions. This will result in both you and the officer remaining safe.
Remember: The officer may request that the firearm is secured until the stop is over. (Terry v. Ohio) Cooperating with reasonable requests will ensure everyone remains safe. If you believe the officer was unreasonable, rude or overstepped his/her authority, follow up with a complaint to that officers command.
Carry On!
You may have heard the story out of Orem. If not here is a link to the carjacking full story. A few points we can glean from this event.
The first question we often ask in these situations is ‘was it a good shoot?’ Obviously we don’t not have all the facts and lets fact it, the media has been know to embellish irrelevant items while glossing over others. But if we just take what we know at hand, the answer would have to be “Yes!”.
I base this upon simple criteria:
Was there fear of death or serious bodily injury to another person? Yes, this was not so much about the vehicle itself but the fact that the perpetrator was using force to obtain the vehicle. As we discussed during the course, we don’t use deadly force to protect property, but this was not about the property but the force being used against a person to obtain that property. The perpetrator committed a forceable felony.
When confronted, the perpetrator attempted to take the firearm from the shooter. Again, this would constitute a forcible felony and raise to the level of being in fear of death or serious bodily injury.
In reading the comments on KSL (taken with a grain of salt as trolls are very preventing on this site) I would stay there was an overwhelming support for this self defense situation. There is a lot of speculation as to what the perp might have done if he got away and high speed chases, etc. I would suggest losing that thought processes if you posses it. That is akin to saying a person with a firearm is going to shoot up the school, etc. just because they have a firearm. I stay clear of speculating because my crystal ball is in for remain awaiting parts and I would just be guessing.
Q: I see students everywhere — on the bus, walking down the street, in coffee shops — staring at their phones non-stop. My neighbor’s son walked right past me the other day without acknowledging me, that’s how absorbed he was. I think it’s rude and dangerous to disengage from your surroundings like this. What can I say when I see someone paying more attention to a phone than to those around him?
— Name withheld, Brooklyn, N.Y.
A: I hear you, but it would be hard to say anything if you can’t even get someone’s attention! A friend of mine in his 40s, irritated by this very same infraction by younger folks, posted on Facebook how he decided to handle it, writing, “Seeing those people buried in their phones on the sidewalk is one of my biggest pet peeves about walking around the city, so I decided to stop stepping out of the way and let them run into me instead, which happened one night.”
Assuming no guinea pigs (or humans) were injured in this experiment, that’s one way to get people to take their eyes off the phone and — with any luck — make it a teachable moment. Once you do that, what do you say? I like a firm “Excuuuse me!” Those words, along with the impromptu collision, should provoke a sincere “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” And, I’d hope, an effort by the offender to pay more attention to his or her surroundings, which is important for two reasons.
First, let’s talk about basic safety. Not so long ago, a colleague of mine was walking to the subway in New York — with earbuds in place, fingers blithely tapping away — and oblivious to the person behind her. In seconds, both her phone and handbag were abruptly removed from her possession. I suppose she was lucky that was the extent of the crime, but the theft was not exactly small potatoes: Consumer Reports estimates that more than 3 million Americans had their smartphones stolen in 2013, double the number estimated for the year before.
There’s another, more prosaic reason. Paying attention to your surroundings is not only a way to protect yourself, but it’s also the only way to simply be present, i.e. to experience the street scene about you and to become a part of it. Not to go all Zen-like on you, but I am reminded of this powerful quote from philosopher Eckhart Tolle: “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus on your life.”
My friend who played bumper cars on the street told me, “This behavior reminds me of something that I miss most about living in the city, too — eye contact. Used to be that you couldn’t walk down the street without catching the eye of several strangers — and handsome strangers if you were lucky. That hardly happens anymore.” If that occurred more often, maybe I wouldn’t get so many questions from readers about how they hate dating apps.
As for your neighbor’s son, I think a hearty (and loud) greeting from you standing directly in front of him would have been in order: “John! What are you up to today?” Asking a question that requires an answer would, at the very least, force his eyes to leave the screen for a moment.
Can you improve your shooting skills without spending a fortune on ammunition? According to sharpshooter Kirsten Joy Weiss, the answer is an enthusiastic “yes!”
Weiss claims you can significantly improve your shooting skills by using a simple training technique called “dry firing.”
Dry firing involves a shooter going through the entire process of shooting without actually having a live round in the chamber.
Of course, this eliminates the noise and recoil: “All you hear is the click of the trigger as you take the shot,” she says.
During training sessions, Weiss suggests dry firing three rounds for every live round you fire. She’s also quick to point out the economic benefit of dry firing, “As we all know, ammunition is one biggest expenses of shooting, and it adds up.”
What are you looking for when you dry fire your weapon? Weiss talks about three simple actions she focuses on in order to perfect the technique of pressing the trigger without moving your “sight picture.”
One very important point shared by Weiss, dry firing should only be done on weapons made for center-fire ammunition. Using a rifle or handgun meant for rim fire ammunition could damage the gun’s firing pin.
Need to know more? Watch the video:
Imagine a police officer pulls over a car for a routine traffic violation, such as speeding or driving with a broken taillight. During the stop, the officer develops a hunch that there may be drugs in the car. He contacts a local K-9 unit and requests a trained drug-sniffing dog; when the unit arrives, another officer will walk the dog around the car to see if it alerts to drugs inside. Although the Supreme Court has held that the use of the dog is not a search, the length of a warrantless stop must be reasonable. The officer can’t delay the driver forever.
This raises a question of Fourth Amendment law that has led to a lot of lower court litigation: If 
the officer has no reasonable suspicion that drugs are in the car — that is, he only has a hunch — how long can the traffic stop be delayed before the dog arrives and checks out the car?
This might seem like a really technical question. But it’s actually pretty important. If courts say that the police can’t extend the stop even one second to bring over the dogs, then the dogs will only be used when they happen to be right there or some reasonable suspicion exists specifically justifying their use. On the other hand, if the courts say that the police can extend the stop for a long time, then the police will be free to bring out the dogs at routine traffic stops whenever they like.
Lower courts have generally answered the question by adopting a de minimis doctrine. Officers can extend the stop and wait for the dogs for a de minimis amount of time. But exactly how long is that?
Just yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held in United States v. Rodriguez that seven to eight minutes is de minimis. On the other hand, the Supreme Court of Nevada held a few months ago in State v. Beckman that nine minutes is too long.
These are just lower-court decisions, of course, and there is room to argue that duration alone isn’t the only criteria for whether a stop was too long.
Plus, the Supreme Court has been reluctant to announce arbitrary-sounding time limits on Fourth Amendment searches and seizures. Off the top of my head, the only time it has suggested such limits is County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, and even then it did so only because an earlier decision that did not suggest a specific time limit had caused significant chaos in the lower courts in that specific context.
But as of yesterday, the simple (if simplistic) answer to the question might have unusual mathematical precision, at least if you accept the lower court cases as correct. The Constitution allows the police to extend the stop without suspicion for eight minutes, but not a minute longer.
I often get the question: “Can a CDL truck driver legally carry a gun in the truck?”
Legal disclaimer. I am not an attorney and I am not providing legal advice. However, I do posses reading and comprehension skills and the laws of our nation are written so anyone can read and understand them. If you are unsure of this article, please do your own research.
After an exhausted search, I only found one federal law regarding Interstate Transportation of a Firearm. I assume this is what has perpetuated the myth that CDL drivers can not carry. Nothing in this law would prevent a CDL drive, or any other person legally able to posses a firearm, from carrying a firearm in the method described in the law. Unloaded, encased and not readily accessible.
My research show that CDL guidelines are issued by the Federal government to ensure uniformity across all states, however, the actual CDL is issued by the states themselves. The state of issue may enact their own laws or guideline for a CDL that are more restrictive then the federal guidelines but never less. Since each state has its own laws regarding firearms in vehicles, it would default to those laws for everyone. I would point out that the discussion applies to anyone able to legally posses a firearm and not just a driver with a CDL. Nothing I could find could reference any law stating otherwise or limited those with a CDL. However, an employer or owner of a truck does have the right to forbid firearms via policy.
A fundamental part of the legal system in our nation forbids a law from every trumping a right. The Bill of Right ensures you have the ability to bear arms and it would likely be unconstitutional for the federal government or state to remove that right because someone possessed a CDL.
In summary, the Feral laws states you can carry in all states if you firearm is unloaded, encased and not readily accessible. However, each state has it’s own laws regarding possession of a firearm in a vehicle and a person traveling through that state would be subject to those laws. A state may have a different laws for those that possess a Concealed Firearm Permit versus those without. Utah does not distinguish between the two and anyone can carry a handgun either loaded or unloaded (inside the vehicle and those legally able to posses a firearm).
TITLE 18–CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDUREPART I–CRIMES
CHAPTER 44–FIREARMS
Sec. 926A. Interstate transportation of firearms
Notwithstanding any other provision of any law or any rule or regulation of a State or any political subdivision thereof, any person who is not otherwise prohibited by this chapter from transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm shall be entitled to transport a firearm for any lawful purpose from any place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm if, during such transportation the firearm is unloaded, and neither the firearm nor any ammunition being transported is readily accessible or is directly accessible from the passenger compartment of such transporting vehicle: Provided, That in the case of a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver’s compartment the firearm or ammunition shall be contained in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console.
SWAT teams descended on the Boston suburb of Watertown on Friday morning to conduct a door-to-door search for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect left alive after a convenience store robbery, car chase, and shootout Thursday night. Is it legal for the police to search your house without a warrant?
It can be. Under the Fourth Amendment, a judge issues a warrant if police can demonstrate that a search is “reasonable”—that there is “probable cause” to investigate a house, car, or backyard for evidence. But there are plenty of circumstances under which police can perform searches without invoking probable cause.
If you consent to a police search, officers do not need a warrant to enter your home. If you have a housemate, he or she can allow the police to rummage through common areas, such as the living room or the kitchen, but not private areas, such as your closet or bedroom.
Furthermore, police may enter a private residence to provide emergency assistance to an occupant—which may include apprehending a suspected terrorist who also happens to be inside. And if they plan to make an arrest in someone’s home, they can undertake a “protective sweep” of the dwelling first to confirm that no weapons or accomplices are stashed away where they can do damage later.
Should these justifications fail, the police could also just conduct a search that violates the Fourth Amendment, knowing that whatever evidence they turn up might not be admissible in court. If their first priority is securing public safety, such a bargain doesn’t seem too awful.
What if the cops are searching my house for bombers and they find a brick of cocaine on my coffee table?
You’re in trouble. According to the “plain view” doctrine, if police already have a right to be in your house and they notice evidence of a crime, they are entitled to seize that evidence for use against you in court. Of course, the SWAT teams searching for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev probably have more on their minds right now than illegal drug use.
By Katy Waldman
Don’t dismiss the need to store firearms safely. The consequences can cause serious injury or death. Follow these guidelines to keep firearms away from all unauthorized persons:
1. Always remove ammunition from guns.
2. Assure no unauthorized persons have access to your gun.
3. Place ammunition in a locked location, separate from guns. When deciding where to store ammunition, remember to select a secure place that is out of sight and reach of children.
4. Secure unloaded firearms with a gun lock, gun alarm or other type of tamper-proof device. These might render the firearm inoperable.
5. Store unloaded guns in a gun cabinet, safe, or locked gun vault. Remember to place a locked storage case where children can’t find it.
6. Keep gun storage keys away from the “every day” keys.
Safe Gun HandlingTake responsibility for gun ownership. Learn how to handle a gun safely. One careless act with a firearm can result in a deadly mistake.
1. Do not allow untrained or unauthorized persons to handle guns.
2. Always handle fire arms as if they were loaded.
3. Keep guns pointed in a safe direction. Never point a gun at someone. Remember that bullets can ricochet off or penetrate walls, ceilings, doors, windows and other surfaces and objects.
4. Do not allow children, teenagers or adults to play with guns or handle them like toys.
5. Read all instruction manuals completely before using any firearm and take a gun safety course.
6. Teach children the basic elements of gun safety and instruct them on what to do if they find or see a gun. Tell them, “Never play with guns. If you find one, leave it alone and tell a grown up”.
7. Guns can be a natural curiosity for children. Repeat the “Don’t play with guns” message frequently. Reinforce it by quizzing them on what they would do if they found a gun.
Practice the following four simple steps with your young children:
1. STOP
2. DON’T TOUCH
3. LEAVE THE AREA
4. TELL AN ADULT
A gun in the home is not uncommon considering that half the homes in America have one. When gun safety isn’t practiced in these homes, lives can be destroyed and lost: husbands, wives, sons, daughters, grandchildren, and friends. Often times these needless deaths can be prevented. You can help save lives! Practice gun safety in the home. Tell your neighbors, friends and relatives to spread the message throughout the community
Firearm Safety in the Home
Utah Concealed Firearm Permit Course
Utah CCW Carry