Could he actually do it?

Even if he was within his legal rights, could the 64-year-old, soft-spoken accountant ever take a handgun and kill another human being?

How? When? Under what circumstances?

Stribling's own .38-caliber handgun - the one he occasionally used for sport target practice - sat outside the cramped conference room inside the Crossfire Recreation Center in Independence. The center has a large indoor shooting range in the rear.

Stribling, a thin, quiet-mannered Raytown man with salt-and-pepper hair, had come to the gun shop Saturday for the eight-hour gun class now required for anyone in Missouri who wants to carry a concealed weapon.

On Sept. 11, Missouri became the 36th - and the latest - state to pass a concealed carry statute. Although the law doesn't go into effect until Oct. 11, thousands of residents are calling gun shops statewide asking about classes. In the Kansas City area, the classes began Saturday. Crossfire has hundreds on a waiting list: entire businesses, friends with friends, families, church groups.

Stribling was in the Navy and, when in high school, a member of his rifle team. He knew he wanted to be at one of the first classes even "if the class was 24 hours long. Or 48," he said

For him, it was about his Second Amendment rights, about freedom, about exercising what he called "the right of choice."

Which is exactly how his 36-year-old son, Alan, a hotel piano player who also manages real estate, felt too. So, with his Glock 9 mm, Alan was there, along with 12 others including a Harrisonville truckdriver, a construction worker, a stay-at-home dad, a retired physician on oxygen and his wife.

For three of the eight hours, Stribling liked everything the National Rifle Association instructor, Eugene Peake, had to say.

Peake is a huge, affable man, with wide silver bracelets on massive wrists and six diamond rings on massive fingers. He sat at the head of the conference table. Behind him, an American flag pinned to the wall. Above that, a fragment from Article Two of the Bill of Rights - the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Above that hung a new sign related to the new law:

PLEASE DO NOT ASK US TO DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL.

IF YOU PASS, YOU PASS.

IF YOU FAILED, YOU'VE FAILED.

Later, after class, every applicant would take their handguns, head to the firing range and, after 50 practice shots at 21 feet the applicants would fire 20 rounds into a silhouette target. If 15 didn't hit the silhouette at 21 feet, they failed. No excuses. Done. They'd have to retake the class.

If they passed, they could give the Jackson County Sheriff a nonrefundable $100, get fingerprinted, and then fill out an application for the concealed carry permit. If state and federal background checks came back OK, they'd be issued a permit within 45 days.

But, with dead-eye candor, Peake also warned that if anyone was not taking the class seriously, he'd boot them.

In sport shooting, he told the group, a gun is called a firearm, not a weapon.

"But this is a new ball game," he said. "This is a weapon. It's time to get real...You got something on your hip, you better think!"

Gun accidents? No such thing.

"Do something wrong and something bad is going to happen," he said. "Once that bullet leaves, all the 'sorrys' in the world are not going to bring it back. And it's going to stop somewhere. When you pull that trigger, you better know where the bullet is going."

Stribling and the rest of the class listened intensely, eyes and ears trained on Peake as he went over gun mechanics, gun use, gun locks, drawing your gun, bullets, types of guns and, most of all, gun safety.

The three top rules:

Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

Always keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.

Always keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

But then, during and after the break, the mood turned even more serious.

"Do you think you could take a life?" he asked the group, and he looked at everyone.

People said nothing. Stribling's mouth tightened; he stared down at the table.

"A lot of people say 'yes' to that question," Peake went on, "but most people can't. It's not easy."

He wanted his students to think seriously before carrying a concealed handgun.

"You have to think of the aftereffect," he said to the group. "You're not shooting some rabbit," he said. "You're talking about a living, breathing person.

"If you do shoot someone, and you belong to a church, have you thought of what your church will say? What will your neighbors say? How are you going to react to that? Even a policeman who shoots or kills a person, it messes up the mind."

During a break, people had spoken about killing. They knew the responsibility. Many said even with the training and the permit, they would not carry a gun, they just wanted the option. Others were, simply, fearful.

"If the world weren't the way it is," one person said, "this wouldn't be necessary."

If the bad guys have guns, the argument goes, then why not the good guys?

Anti-gun proponents, of course, disagree.

Each year, more than 18,000 people commit suicide with guns; thousands of children unintentionally injure themselves. The U.S. Department of Justice says of the 15,980 people murdered in the U.S. in 2001, 63 percent were murdered with guns.

On the pro-gun side, advocates of concealed carry argue that since Florida in 1987 became the first state to pass concealed carry laws, America's crime rate has plummeted and homicides are at their lowest levels in nearly 40 years.

The National Rifle Association and others like to link that drop to concealed carry laws. But scholars such as Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University, says crime is declining everywhere, even in states without concealed carry laws.

Most concealed carry analysis concludes that it has virtually no effect on crime. Gun-toting civilians neither drive crime up or down.

Scholars say that the typical person who gets a concealed carry permit has rarely, if ever, been a victim of crime. Often they're white men who live in rural areas where crime is light. Studies have also found that, in time, many civilians who decide to carry concealed weapons eventually stop. Carrying a gun can be unwieldy or uncomfortable.

Stribling struggled with the question about killing. If his life, someone else's life, was in danger, could he shoot? Yes. And the others agreed.

"I'm not a hunter," one man said. "I couldn't shoot an animal. But I could shoot a man, because a man would give me reason."

But what if you see a robbery in progress? Do you brandish your gun? What if someone, at gunpoint, tries to steal your wallet? Do you draw your weapon?

A lawyer, Derek Ward, told the group that if they faced a robber in their home, they would be justified in using a gun.

He told them: "My personal preference is to shoot first and ask questions later."

Then he told everyone not to cooperate with the police. Just ask for a lawyer.

The statement made many of the group wince. Stribling, for one, said that's just not something he could do. He would tell the person to get down. He would call the police. As for a robbery in progress:

"I don't know," he said. "It's hard. It's hard to know."

"A last resort," Peake said of drawing a gun.

"If I did," Stribling said, "I'd do it with tears in my eyes. Life is precious. They'd have to be pulling out their (gun) in motion against me, even if I was to take a wound."

As the class continued, Stribling, concerned about what he would do, wrote a note to a member in the group:

"A reason for my sensitivity on the subject," it read, "is that I am also a minister."

Soon after, on the shooting range, he fired 20 rounds at the silhouette. He hit it 20 times.

To reach Eric Adler, call (816) 234-4431 or send e-mail to eadler@kcstar.com.