I do love the idea of mandatory classes on the Constitution before voting, perhaps pretty much in the same way you seem to love the idea of mandatory training in order to get permission to exercise the right to keep and bear arms. The problem is, for both of us, neither is constitutional.
We can't overlook the Constitution for the things we might wish for and then be upset when others overlook it for the things they wish for - like taking our guns. We need to always stand up for following the Constitution, otherwise we lose all moral right to insist on it when we need it.
Consider other ways to get what you want - people handling guns safely. Consider mandatory gun safety in the public schools. Mandatory militia training for all males from 16-60. Don't tie it to keeping and bearing arms, tie it to militia duty - and then require that every male 16-60 own an AR-15 (or even M-16/M-4).
There are 100 million gun owners today and roughly 500 accidental gun deaths. That's one death for each two-hundred thousand gun owners. If mandatory training would solve half of those, then that's 250 a year and a rate of one out of four-hundred thousand.
Either rate is higher than we wish it would be but 500 deaths is still a minuscule fraction of the total of two-hundred thousand accidental deaths each year.
Unfortunately, too many years of no consequences for crime, no guns in the homes, no teaching respect for the police and others, and no civics/Constitutioni, and early American history, have left us with a huge criminal debt that will have to be resolved. That means more prisons, more lawlessness, more danger in our streets, perhaps for generations, until morality, gun safety skills, intelligent voting, and many other needs will be met in our society. But if we want to restore a civil society we don't get it by creating unconstitutional, feel good, laws and regulations; we do it by going back to what our nation was intended by our Fore-fathers to be.
If you want training to save lives, start with training pool owners, including those who buy the 10 dollar plastic pools at Walmart every summer, and mandatory swimming classes for all children. You'd save far more lives and do it constitutionally - as long as it was done at the State level and not Federal.
