News that makes our heart soar — the number of folks statewide seeking training to carry concealed weapons has doubled over last year — from nearly 16,000 to more than 32,000.

That’s according to the Denver Post, which held back from spewing forth a totally snarky, preachy story and actually wrote a mostly straight-forward piece on the spike:

Certified trainers who teach classes required to get a permit say people flocking to the classes often are motivated by mass shootings. Politicians say politics and the fear that stricter gun control laws eventually may prohibit gun ownership also play a role.

“Any time the Democrats like Obama, or Hillary Clinton now, start talking about guns, people get worried that their Second Amendment rights might be infringed,” said state Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley. “They’re doing this to beat the rush.”

We would argue that folks are not motivated by mass shootings, but the desire to protect themselves after watching the mass media inundation of the aftermath of such, along with Democrats preaching that we’re all next, but we quibble.

Democrats see the training and permits as a bad thing, because they want us to surrender ourselves and our safety to the government, which they argue is always right there to take our money protect us.

“Our concerns are that it just makes guns more prevalent in everyday walks of life,” said Eileen McCarron, president of Colorado Ceasefire Legislative Action. “It’s just changing our public life of how we view one another with suspicion that people are bringing in arms to places you wouldn’t expect them to.”

Someone sounds paranoid. Probably from watching too much MSNBC.

For westerners, guns have always been prevalent in our walk of life, mostly because we view with suspicion the bear charging at us across our ranch, or the coyotes circling our cattle.

It’s a good thing that the number of folks seeking concealed carry permits is increasing, because it means that our neighbors want to be trained and equipped to safely carry a firearm.