By Police1 Staff
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Aransas Pass Police Department is the only agency in Texas that offers a free concealed handgun license class to people in their community, KRIS TV reported.
Chief Eric Blanchard told the publication he wants to educate the community about guns.
“The bad guys don’t care about the rules. If they want to be armed they are going to be armed,” Blanchard told KRIS TV. “If we can offset those numbers with good people being armed out there. I think the odds are in favor of the good people winning when a disastrous lunatic decides to strike.”
Here’s a video from our CHL class this morning!
Posted by Aransas Pass Police Department on Saturday, October 10, 2015
Blanchard had one of his captains, Lynn Pearce, become the CHL instructor. So far, community feedback has been positive, Pearce told the publication.
“We posted it noon on Tuesday. By Wednesday at noon I had 65 requests to take the first 3 classes we offered,” Pearce said in her interview.
The classes are eight hours, with time being divided between classroom lecture and range practice. If residents pass the class, they still need to go through a background check and get fingerprinted.
The class is currently only open to Aransas residents and the first three scheduled are already full. The department plans to add more.