More training and harsher penalties need to be proportional to the amount of damage recreational flyers can do.
For obvious reasons, we can't hang warning signs in the air.
I have my doubts that a license will prevent people from doing stupid things, but that is (at least part of) the reasoning for having a license - so the government can say "told you so".
It's on par with immigration forms asking you if you're planning to be a terrorist. It's a useless question, but it establishes a paper trail that somebody has told you not to do that.
It's like rooted in Lambert v. California, which stated that you can't convict a person of violating a law if there was no probability they could've know the law existed. A question, or a sign, or a license establishes that there is a probability.
"No drones, no dogs, and no bikes. Those are the posted rules in the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach." https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/after-thousands-o...
Indeed, licences won't stop stupidity but they do help establish penalties.
The course is very simple but basically a reminder of the rules. Now potential violaters are more aware of it. Combine that with real consequences - and the number of idiots flying close to airports or peoples bedrooms will get lower.
How will requiring people to take a 30 minute class "destroy the sport"?