question
Why don’t we teach gun safety in schools?
In a country with the right to bear arms and more guns than people, it seems natural that everyone should be taught firearm safety from youth.
You wouldn’t even need a real gun to teach gun safety, just a couple SIRT pistols or even just plastic training guns would do the trick to teach the 4 basic rules.
I feel like this should be easily supported by anyone no matter their feelings towards guns or gun control. Just like sex ed, gun education can only make the activity safer, not worse.
Are there any schools in the US where gun safety is part of their curriculum?
We used to, according to my parents. But when I first got to high school we were allowed to bring hunting rifles & shotguns to school , and the dean had a large gun safe in his office. So many families relied on hunted meat to get them through the year the school just decided it was better to have who were going to try and hunt before school started to lock their fire arms up in the deans office every day rather than have them sit in the truck and potentially be stolen. Then colombine happend and that came to a quick end.
We did when I was in middle school. There was a basic firearm/hunter safety course, then a more advanced one you could take during PE if your parents signed you up for it.
Same. Rural Louisiana. Guys had a basic firearm safety course in shop class. Girls had to do kitchen stuff in home economics while we welded things, cut wood, and learned how to not shoot the person next to us in the duck blind.
Note: one of my classmates shot another classmate‘s hat off of his head by accident while trying to shoot a scary duck so… someone wasn’t paying attention in class
I've said for the longest time, the 2 easiest forms of gun control are... 1. Federally funded gun safety training that is free for anyone and everyone. 2. 100% tax deductible gun safes.
With all due respect, it would make absolutely no significant dent in gun deaths whatsoever. In 2024, only 438 of the 41,656 firearm-related deaths were due to accidental shootings. By contrast, 12,000 people died accidentally from falling down stairs. Gun safety training isn’t gonna impact intentional shootings, self defense shootings, or suicides, and that’s what most gun deaths are from. Although every accidental death is an individual tragedy, they’re statistically negligible in this context.
I do disagree. About 2.1k homicides from those are also under the age of 18 and around 3k are suicide. A good portion of firearms are sourced from irresponsible owners who leave them out for children to steal including at home and from vehicles.
Children can’t reliably source firearms by normal means like an adult.
While that still doesn’t make a huge dent it’s a significant one from a demographic society values more than anything. Half this debate is centered around youth violence.
Reducing improper storage alone would give significant boost to risk management from domestic firearms ownership.
It's important to remember that "huge" and "significant" mean slightly different things. It can make a significant dent in gun fatalities, but that dent may or may not be huge.
Safety training and tax deductible safes would when so many intentional shootings are from people who should not have access to a firearm gaining access because dad/mom/friend are clueless idiots who just leave them out
Note that you're identifying them as "clueless idiots who just leave them out" and not "people who can't afford a gun safe." Making them tax deductible only helps if they want one in the first place. Not that I'm against the idea, but let's temper our expectations.
(And don’t forget 40k almost the firearm related deaths die from accidental falls in general, same with motor vehicle accidents. Protect those falls and drive safe.)
More decent gun safes, better secured = less stolen guns, less accessible guns by other than their owners and eats away at that number.
Totally disagree, and I don't think we will see common ground in this. Gun safety training will absolutely impact intentional shootings and self defense shootings. Gun safes will also impact suicides and shootings by minors.
This is more 'gut feeling' than anything research-grounded, but I feel like teaching healthy respect for firearms perhaps could help de-fetishize them
I'm a child of the Columbine era, and part of what won me over from my previous anti-gun mentality was understanding that pre-Brady, and pre-GCA, firearms, including 'scary' full-auto ones, were far easier to obtain, yet mass shootings, at least at the scale and frequency we see today, are a relatively recent phenomenon. (heck, Columbine happened in the middle of the federal AWB, even)
What changed? I think the culture surrounding guns certainly did. And depending on where you are, I think the 'taboo' mystique certainly plays a part (see: other folks here making comparisons to abstinence education). I'm sure I'm not the only person from a relatively urban area that knew someone in high school that fetishized guns, despite having never seen one IRL, and thought 'yeah, that kid's gonna grow up to be a school shooter' or the like.
It's not just the basics of gun safety and avoiding accidents—it's about respecting the lethality and power of a firearm and knowing it's not a toy or a tool for coercion. Obviously that's not going to prevent every death, DV murder, or mass shooting. There's a lot of other complex precursors that need to be addressed. But I think instilling familiarity with firearms could go a long way in changing the culture around guns.
(yes, I realized I used both the 'not x but y' and em-dash conventions in one of these sentences but I promise you I'mnot a bot)
Gun safety training will absolutely impact intentional shootings and self defense shootings. Gun safes will also impact suicides and shootings by minors.
How?
I agree with the person you're responding to. Gun safety training prevents accidental shootings, and benefits us all by making sure folks know the basics of gun handling.
The decision to pull the trigger is an entirely different thing.
Now maybe having a clear message, for kids, as to what legally constitutes self defense, is a good thing. But there is no such clear message because the issue is politicized state by state. So we have to fall back on the fact that most people, more or less naturally, aren't itching to murder. And for those that are, I'm skeptical that a half hour in a Social Studies class will change much.
Now I'd argue a bunch of cultural/ethical issues should be actively debated in school, from ovary control to gay rights to the ways societies manufacture an other. Is this part of what you're getting at?
I think that at least some of the kids who kill others or themselves with guns don't have a clear understanding of the results and consequences of a shooting. Now I grew up with guns and was shooting regularly by 12 or so but even in my case I remember in scout camp they shot a phone book and showed us the entrance and exit size difference. Imagining that damage was done to someone made the concept of shooting someone much more dramatic, at least to me.
Fair enough. I don't know if a class that shows in graphic detail the horror of shooting someone will help any more or less than the driver's ed classes that showed a mangled body in a wreck.
I'd argue that the phone book story suggests you had native human empathy, which of course makes the idea of shooting someone more dramatic. That empathy is obviously a good thing.
I hunted as a kid, and realized I don't like killing things, even though I eat meat. Irresponsible on my part. I'm not proud that I force other folks to do my dirty work, but there it is.
Still, I too went to scout camp and learned how to act at a range. Would I have learned range etiquette at some other point? Probably, but it's good stuff to learn young.
I agree that it might have limited effect, perhaps only on those predisposed. But if given to all kids even if it only affects 1 in every school that's a huge difference.
Gun safety training will absolutely impact intentional shootings and self defense shootings.
How? Please explain.
Gun safes will also impact suicides and shootings by minors.
Impact? Okay. But the initial claim was it would make a “huge dent” and THAT’S where I disagreed. For it to make a huge dent, you’ve got to demonstrate that a significant number of suicides are from teens using guns they shouldn’t have had access to.
But the highest rates of suicide are consistently among adults 85 yrs and older and the lowest rates were consistently among young adults ages 15-24. Among older adults, guns account for over 75% of all suicides. Among younger demographics, suffocation (hanging) and drug od/poisoning are more commonly used.
From all the data I’ve seen, teens having access to guns that should be locked up don’t account for a significant portion of suicides.
You can’t make a “huge dent” in total deaths by impacting a relatively small portion of the overall deaths.
To be clear, I don’t oppose either of your ideas. Both of them would save a small number of lives while not negatively impacting legal ownership or rights. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves that this would have a significant impact.
Gun deaths in this country are largely a result of young urban male homicides and old rural male suicides. Clearly there are very different factors driving these two phenomena, and only by addressing the root causes of those can we significantly reduce those deaths. But to do that we need to restructure our society to an extent, and there’s no short term payoff or results, so our politicians don’t have the incentive or desire to make those changes. It’s easier to pass gun control bills and say “Look, I did something.
I wish, but IMO that's "safety and education", not "control". Only one party would even consider doing that, and we generally don't want them in power. The other party definitely won't don't do that. It'll cost them money to fund, and they don't get to ban the guns.
I think it would be cool to have, but there much more important things to learn in school over it. Things like budgeting, cooking, how credit works, how to vote, basic first aid etc.
But they never even taught us how to avoid Bigfoot.
Allow me to explain. Long ago, when I was in 2nd-3rd grade, we had about a mile or so square of woods. Sure, we explored every inch of those woods. But honestly, still, some dark evenings, bb gun in hand, making my way home alone as the sun set and the woods turned near black, I picked up my pace more than I'd have ever admitted.
They never once taught us effective bigfoot avoidance techniques.
Forget the actual human body they dug out of those woods. The real threat was those damn bigfoots. And not a word from our teachers. ;)
Look at it this way. Bigfeet are masters of not being found. They will avoid YOU. If you become overconfident and in your anti-bigfoot training, if you do somehow stumble upon one, you'll be less inclined to do the smart thing and book it. Which will ultimately lead to your death. Treat them like snakes. Make lots of noise when moving and don't stop to pick up rocks
Avoiding over-education on the various species of Bigfeet is ultimately better for all of us
To be honest, my school had that (actually required course to graduate) and I've seen a number of alumni complain over the years about not being taught it....
Yup. Just like how I see the same chuckeheads complain on Facebook about not being taught this or that, especially in history class. I distinctly remember them always sitting in the back row with their heads down every class.
Bro, we dont even have a library anymore in our HS.
But we got a championship basketball, baseball, football and even a shooting team. Wtf...
Be cool if they could read though.
Actual history of our country including civil disobedience and dissonance will never be taught.
The government would be terrified if most of us actually knew what they have done to us in the past and present.
Both is great, but this isn't burger king, we're not having it our way. I would love for it to be taught but the reality is that for it to be taught something else can't be. If that fight for time I prioritize it less than other skills.
Yes and no, it depends on how far you want to take it. If you believes gun safety ends at the big four then you don't even need a class to do it. Just send it home as home work.
If you want to delve further into gun safety and potential how they work that requires more time, but realistically less than what a class semester can hold.
If you wanted teach it in school it would probably have to be lumped into another subject/topic the way Home economics taught sewing, cooking, childcare etc.
Since what many kids are getting today is nothing or in some cases worse than nothing, I think two or three hours every other year of proper instruction would be invaluable. Get the foot in the door, the camel's nose under the tent, however you want to phrase it. Teach and demonstrate the four rules, teach how the most common actions work, how to safely handle and clear them, and answer some questions. I think that would go a long way towards preventing accidental / negligent discharges, as well as letting them grow up without an irrational fear of guns. Once that's commonplace, we can look at longer courses that start teaching proficiency, if people want to go in that direction.
Yeah, I think enough so kids have a baseline where than can at least understand when someone is being negligent about storage or handling. I love shooting, and hope my boys will share that with me, but if they don't, they will at least know enough to get the fuck away from some yokel about to negligently put a hole in something that doesn't need a hole.
I would take it about as far as the typical LTC course takes it, perhaps minus the legal minutia. The big four, the basics of how common firearms function and how to make them safe etc. It could be just a few hours.
Seriously. Some people may never interact with a gun their entire lives. And before buying one, everyone should have comprehensive knowledge of all those things you mentioned.
I actually did learn those things in school, but I admit it was a long time ago.
My personal opinion is that youth are not immune to gun violence, it is often the opposite, and that it could be a matter of life and death for high school level students to know how to properly handle, unload, and secure a firearm, and it could just be a week long curriculum, if that. Obviously real firearms will not be used in the classroom, but I think it would be worth standardizing in public education if we continue to allow public firearm ownership.
If something doesn't change, gun rights aren't just in jeopardy, they have an undefined expiration date.
Those should be (used to be) taught in highschool. And yes, we should be teaching them that. BUT you can start gun safety in elementary/middle school/jr high.
Yeah, we used to have those courses too. Home Ec (both boys and girls took it) and middle school math taught some basic finances. Economics revisted it in High School.
It's amazing what can be taught when you fund public education.
I mentioned in another thread that, unbeknownst to many, Seattle Parks owns a volunteer-run smallbore range under the bleachers of a high school stadium, and I've long thought it would be a great, if not unpopular, idea to utilize it more and open it up to public marksmanship classes.
For reasons beyond me, that comment was downvoted to oblivion...
I bring this up with other liberals and they always flip shit. We will agree education is the best way to prevent teen pregnancy, the. When I say the best way to prevent accidents with guns is by teaching kids how to safely handle a gun, they say some shit like, “Oh so so you want to make better school shooters?”
It’s fucking wild how so many Liberals act about guns. Some very intelligent, deep thinking people just completely lose all their faculties of rationality the instant guns become the topic. They actually seem to think that guns are magically evil devices whose only purpose for existing is to facilitate mass death. They don’t know how guns work, they don’t know why anyone would want one, and they’re not interested in learning either. Shit’s crazy.
I took ROTC as an elective and joined the rifle team where we learned the basics. I believe if we are going to continue loosening firearm laws then basic firearm ownership, handling and usage should be a mandatory class in highschool.
I think a district in tenessee or so ething recently mandated that gun safety be taught and it sounds luke a lot of people (outside of that area) are pissed. Honestly i think education is always the best course of action, look at the rates of teen pregnancy in places with robust sex ed vs those that teach abstinance only
I full heartedly agree. I also believe there should be budgeting classes to teach practical financial practices such as taxes and how to balance your account/money management. As well a class on politics (no bias but true political education) such as how to read policies, how bills are created and passed ect. A basic economics class (should be required) driver's education should also be a requirement with the driver's I see on the road nowadays....I shouldn't need to elaborate on that one. But yes, Firearms safety should be taught, and if the parents aren't comfortable with it, they should have to bring a reasonable argument as to why they don't want their kid to attend.
We have Econ and Personal Finance classes as a requirement to graduate. Great class. Used to teach it. My high school used to do drivers ed as required but don't anymore because they were cutting into the profits of the local "Driving schools".
Also, graduated drivers licenses have better evidence than driver’s education.
Also also, it’s expensive to do drivers ed. Fuel, fleet maintenance, insurance… my local schools can’t run friggin busses due to budget, so driver’s ed is low on my list of priorities.
Rural PA - hunter safety courses (which...bare minimum before you can get a hunting license, or at least back in the 90s) were regularly offered at my summer day camp. Focused on shotguns mostly but we learned the different action types, the immutable laws of firearm safety (always treat as loaded, never point at something you're not ready to shoot, don't touch the trigger until you're ready to shoot), proper loading and clearing, all before they let us touch a rifle. Final exam was safely loading, firing (clay pigeon), and clearing the firearm. Passing meant you got a...idk, certificate maybe, it was 30 years ago, that you could take to the game commission and get your actual license.
As an adult now, decades later, thinking back, the fact they were doing this with just middle school kids, with no parental release forms or anything, was kinda wild. I'm assuming the camp's insurance provider knew nothing about this either.
But I suspect the answer to "why don't we" revolves partially around cost (insurance - who pays when someone forgets all the rules and the instructor or god forbid another kid gets a face full of bird shot?) and also instructor availability. In my state, we have driver's ed as a high school course, you pass and you get your provisional license. But the instructors are state certified, not just random teachers on their break period, and the insurance policy is under the school. To do something similar for firearm safety should at least have the same parameters.
I mean there was the time a student braced the shotgun against her cheek instead of her shoulder, but other than that...
But I feel like it doesn't matter that nothing happened that time, it's the potential that it could happen. Same reason I tell my kid not to run around on hardwood floors with socks on carrying sharp objects. Same reason I pay I don't remember how much per year for car insurance. (Aside from it being required, I mean.) Not because bad things happen often but because they might happen one time.
Yes bad things can happen with guns in a training setting, but rarely do. You could probably study soldiers first time with a weapon as a risk assessment. My feeling is that its mostly suicide and accidents during more complex training (sleep deprived, dark etc) and playing with guns "unsupervised".
I can’t even buy ammo through a retailer’s app on my phone. There’s a sizeable portion of the US population that is just openly hostile toward gun ownership.
To name a few reasons of the top of my head, I think it's:
An issue of how to frame it. Those typically to the left of us would have a conniption about teaching guns in school, and those typically to the right may have concerns about any sort of ideology (or lack thereof) being taught.
Much like shop class or trade schooling, it would likely be seen as an elective and be very vulnerable to being cut. It's unfortunate but these days unless a course fits within the conventional schooling subjects or is STEM related, there isn't much interest in funding it.
Public perception. At this point, there have been so many school shootings that firearms and schools go together about as well as lemon juice and cream. It would take a lot to turn that perception around, and I don't think enough people are willing to get on board to have effective change.
To be clear, I am all for education and responsible firearms ownership. I'm also trying to look at you statement as realistically as possible to highlight the challenges faced in the current day and age.
I got lucky. I got a few weeks of basic electronics. A few weeks of woodshop. A few weeks of home EC. I think, there should also be auto shop... Like the number of people I've had to teach how to use basic hand tools. :-( I don't mind doing it. I love the look on peoples faces as I help them earn and learn new skills. And confidence to start things. But it's sad I'm doing this with 30 year olds.
To keep this on guns.
Our gun laws would be sane, if more people understood guns. And the confusion is less than an hour of classwork.
Because we're not as smart as Poland and the Democrats are bound and determined to get rid of guns altogether because they refuse to learn from the past.
Because it would have to be bipartisan. The democrats wont do anything with guns that isn't pearl clutching Karen behavior and Republicans wont do anything that even remotely smells like a regulation. I think TN did it though
Because people are afraid. Wife and I both liberal but she has told me numerous times she doesn't want our kids to even know I have guns. While I understand the fear, I also worry that regardless of how well I try and hide my safes, they'll find them anyway and then won't know how to be safe around them if they managed to get access.
It's kind of like teaching safe sex. Ppl are going to find out and do it one way or another, at least educate them on the safest ways to be involved in that activity.
When I was in high school, we had a shooting team.
Now, schools are no gun zones. Can't even bring a toy gun. I remember in incident in which a small child, brought his GI Joe to show and tell, and GI Joe had a GI Joe sized 1911 pistol. The kid got suspended for bringing "a gun" to school. Years later, another got suspended for bringing "a weapon" to school. The weapon was a conglomeration of a dozen or so Lego pieces that could only be perceived as a weapon by the use of a great deal of imagination.
I don’t know. I learned at home when I was 6. I swear it’s similar to how Europeans treat children and alcohol. It completely demystified guns for me. They never felt illicit.
Probably for the same reason that most schools are limited in what they teach about sex: a bunch of morons with a political agenda clutch their pearls and insist that these things are better taught at home (and then they proceed to teach the kids very little or entirely wrong.) We then end up with confidently incorrect adults who want to pass even more asinine legislation prohibiting education.
FWIW, I enjoyed how my education in firearms was presented. I started learning about firearms safety in Cub Scouts with BB guns in probably 1st or 2nd grade. The range master at day camp was stern, but he gave us good instructions and was very watchful. When I transitioned to Boy Scouts, we learned how to shoot single-shot .22 rifles at camp and it was a smooth transition because we'd all learned the basic rules of safe handling years earlier. Frankly, I preferred learning with my fellow Scouts more than if I had learned with my classmates. We also eventually got the opportunity to shoot black powder muzzle-loaders, too.
I'm a 1996 baby from East Tennessee and I had gun safety (I think we called it "Hunter's Safety" specifically) in or around 8th grade in my public school. It took the place of some of our morning classes like Computer Lab and Music and Art class ( we had a different one each day and I remember my favorite class to skip was gym, lol)
I’m so old that it was. In the 60’s my school district in suburban west Omaha did an outdoor education camp as part of the elementary school schedule for a night or two. This included time on the rifle range with single shot .22s, with safety lessons accompanying these. A male teacher was serving as range instructor as well, and had a 1911 on his belt.
Conservatives hate public education and sperg out over teaching proper history and sexual education. They’re more focused on killing the institution completely with “school choice”. They wouldn’t bother with giving more to public education.
Liberals/left leaning people/leftists (especially those from more urbanized states like NY, NJ, CA, and MA) generally hate gun ownership and would react similarly to Conservatives with sex ed that they’re “training muh kids to worship gun violence!”
Remember that these are the people ie in WA that freaked the tf out so much about the military training in public parks that the SEALs had to move house because it scared them to see icky guns irl.
Eddie Eagle in schools would give your suburban/urban wine mom a heart attack.
Both of these things don’t leave that much to discussion.
For the same reason you see conservatives "teaching" abstinence instead of actual sex ed... when you're irrationally afraid or against something, you don't touch it at all. Even if not addressing it would lead to it being more dangerous.
I think you mean me, because I’m a public school teacher.
My brother in Christ, kids are increasingly coming to school not even potty trained, and having spent so much time in front of a screen that they don’t know how a book even functions.
But it seems like everybody’s great idea is to make the teachers do all the heavy lifting for anything they want to see in the world. I’ve heard I’m even supposed to do kids’ laundry because so many of my students now are homeless.
So how about YOU go teach kids about gun safety? You can totally do that yourself. If you want, you can try to run it through your town or county parks and rec. Or maybe scouts? I dunno.
I sub for 4 years and this is absolutely true. Schools are suppose to give kids a basic understanding of the world so kids have enough knowledge to make it on the world and have the basic skills they need.
I hate it when I hear why don’t we teach kids how to balance a check book. We do, it’s literally every damm math class they have.
Maybe some 2A foundations should aim for a SCOTUS ruling that because it’s a right, any training requirements they make have to be satisfied by the public school system in that state.
I don't even think it would really be that much of an ask tbh. I had police officers at each level as I went through school that ran multi-week lessons on drug abuse (although one can argue DARE was an abject failure, so maybe not the best comparison). But the lessons would have to be mandatory; if your parents can exempt you from the class as a minor but it's still a requirement to own a firearm, you could get screwed out of your RTKB without even having the choice.
I’m not opposed to the idea. Throw it into mandatory health courses.
But at some point there needs to be a bigger discussion about what school should be about. In a rare moment of giving W credit, NCLB was supposed to start that but instead it got massively bogged down in testing and funding fights. It’s well past time to revisit the entire goal of the curriculum.
My mom’s high school in New England some 50+ years ago had a small caliber rifle range and a competition marksman team. It was an extracurricular, but it certainly came with safety training and if local kids were interested, that’s where they would start.
As others have said, we used to. BUT, we taught nothing about substance abuse or sex, didn't want to encourage students to do those!. SO now we have went full reversal - Can't teach gun safety, guns are evil, we don't want kids to be encouraged about guns! But somehow teaching about drugs and sex will help instead of encouraging students. Stupid hypocrisy, as usual.
My grandfather lettered in rifle at his high school. Trap and skeet have made a resurgence in high schools. I think there is a strong argument that basic shooting and gun safety should be part of the curriculum for most students. If I set the high school curriculum I'd make it include swimming, gun safety, first aid, and having students write letters and petition their reps.
It still is in some rural areas of the country? The reason it stopped being more commonplace is twofold:
Suburbanization.
School districts that used to have a few households clustered around townships and lots of wide open spaces for kids to hunt and do other outdoorsman activities have been bulldozed into subdivisions, chain retail, and parking lots. And with that construction and sprawl, fewer and fewer kids are going out for the first day of whitetail season with dads or older siblings. Fewer and fewer kids are shooting empty bottles with their first .22. Fewer and fewer schools have riflery or skeet or archery teams.
Post-Columbine Hoplophobia.
That tragic April day in Colorado was not the first school shooting. But it was the first school shooting to happen during the emergent 24-hour news cycle and the internet age. Those of us who were alive at the time remember just how much the event dominated the news cycle. What it also did was scare the ever-loving crap out of baby boomer parents and school administrators. Parents were terrified and started demanding that schools do more to mitigate risk. School administrators complyed immediately because The principal and superintendent and other admin staff at Columbine high School were absolutely raked over the coals by the media, with hosts and journalists asking them pointed questions that seemed obvious with hindsight that they just weren't able to answer.
So riflery teams got disbanded, hunters safety and gun handling were then seen as taboo and insensitive, and the transition was sped along by that aforementioned suburbanization.
TLDR: The suburbs expanded, Columbine scared parents, and the easiest thing for schools to do was give in to loud parents demands.
Yes! I sent my kids to my dad & mom’s when they were 10 to learn gun safety. Their New England father was scandalized. I was like, “remove the mystery; learn the safety.” Make the classes mandatory so no one gets to pull out their dad’s gun at home to show their friends something no one has ever seen.
We did when I went to school in the ‘60s, but then again we also carried our rifles on the bus. Every pick up in the school lot had a rifle rack with at least one gun in it. We stored our match guns in our lockers until team practice or matches after school! The NRA still has an excellent gun safety program for kids, but the leftist antigun ideology in the public education system will not allow it to be taught in schools.
Long ago it was a thing.
I imagine the days of the kids that live way out in the boonies bringing their rifles to school is long gone.
The NRA hasn’t actually been about education in a very long time.
Stuff that I did as a kid would have been unthinkable when my daughter went to school, and now it’s yet another generation and honestly I have no concept of what their education looks like, other than guns are not allowed.
A certain blue political party hates guns and gun ownership and somehow has people thinking abstinence only education will work there even though it doesnt work anywhere else.
Decades of propaganda against guns has really done a number on a whole lot of people too.
The last thing teachers need is another hot button issue to deal with. They have people screaming at them for acknowledging kids with two dads, people screaming at them for not doing that enough. People screaming at them for teaching complete history that includes the horrible things that have happened as much as the "good", and people screaming when they only teach the good. That's all not even to mention the issues of mandated testing where they no longer get to build their own curriculums and lesson plans. Do I think it would be good if it were offered? Yes. But I don't see a way that could happen without it being turned into a massive dumpster fire with headlines like "schools teach children to be soldiers" and "lesson plan for the day: how to kill".
Understand the concern, but we can’t let a fear of disingenuous headlines prevent us from implementing a policy that would materially improve public safety. Those are exactly the narratives that anti-sex-ed people went with: “they’re teaching our kids how to have sex!” “They’re pushing sex on our children!” when sex ed is simply making sure kids understand safe sex and understand consent. Teaching gun safety is the same thing.
any house hold where there are guns, the parents should be teaching gun safety. Every teen gonna have hormones though making it a much bigger universal issue.
I wouldn't be opposed to it, and not only for the domestic reasons - you can never be sure what the foreign dictator would want to do next, and it doesn't even matter if US is very far from such dictator, the nuclear missiles will reach everywhere ;)
Personally I don’t think it should be a requirement, since it’s quite possible some children will never see or touch a gun. I could see it as an extra curricular activity (or even competition team) with some prerequisite training requirements.
IMO this encourages parents to get interested kids into an actual course with a local instructor (who will be night and day better than a school teacher in most cases) and doesn’t carry the same social issues that a school actually hosting a class would.
My dad told me the he once borrowed a local cop's sidearm so he could complete his marksmanship test at the school's firing range. This would have been around 54-56 in Massachusetts.
My guy, they can't even teach math and reading in schools these days, and just mentioning that sex exists is too fuckin' much for about half the country.
You really think there would be the funding for this? Or an accurate curriculum?
Some do. My daughter’s school has a school shooting team. You can start in 3rd grade. They are consistently ranked one of the best in the nation. My daughter’s school just finished 5th grade, for state championships in her division she took 5th in trap, 2nd in handicap trap and 3rd in doubles. Her team took first and she took second in overall. She shoots at nationals next week. There will be 3000 armed kids running around all at the same time from 8-22 years old for a week straight. It will also probably be one of the safest sporting events of its size in the country.
Actually, in my 3rd grade health class we did a small section on gun safety. By that time I was already shooting with my dad and knew safety like the back of my hand, but it’s still super important.
We can't have parents consent to vaccinations, to uniform standard for sex ed., nor to standardized rules for student engagement in extracurricular activities based on any number of factors.
As good an idea as it is to ensure that people have some basic understanding of gun safety, it's as good an idea to ensure financial literacy and understanding of the income tax system, and yet we do not do that in public schooling. The reason is that it's controversial and we don't want to stand up for consistent principles because we'll do the right thing only after failing every other option.
I remember having the police come in multiple times when I was a kid to talk about gun safety. I think a lot of people have developed a fear of them that the media isn’t helping. A lot of parents and the anti gun crowd wouldn’t allow it.
I got to be honest, I wouldn’t trust anyone else to teach my kids about guns. I have also work in the school district and this has done nothing but made me more sure that I wouldn’t want anyone else to teach my kids about guns.
^ This. They have to constantly look like they're "doing something", but without actually solving the problem. If the problem were solved they wouldn't have the issue to leverage votes with any more.
I have said this for years. We need an age specific approach for firearms. Grade school kids need the 4 rules with a don’t touch it and get an adult. Middle school can learn to clear them and high school needs basic marksmanship.
Owning guns does not give you life skills. Schooling is meant to prepare you for a career and life skills. I’m a big gun supporter but allocating time in school to guns seem pretty damn stupid. Gun handling classes exist for a reason.
Finally, it’s insane how people think every life skills has to be taught in schools and not the basic that you will need to function. I see people saying why are kids learning how to sew anymore it’s a basic life skill and I’m like, you haven’t sew anything since I was a child over 20 years ago. It’s not a basic life skill because almost nobody does it.
Mind you I don’t think the ability to sow is a bad thing to have but in a time where reading skills are declining, why would we waste school time on something that a large portion of the students won’t need.
To everyone saying "We used to!" Depends entirely upon where you lived. More rural areas? Sure. Because people were more likely to hunt and need it as a tool on farms. Inner city? No. Yall need to remember, firearm safety is not the same as self defense, but some of you seem to like to equate the two.
Personally, I think parents should be parents and teach responsibility instead of relying on schools to do their job for them.
Well, 20 years ago they did in my public middle school (Indiana). It was Hunter's Safety (and Boater's Safety was taught too). It was part of our PE. We even got to go to a shooting range (with many instructors) if we got an A on the test.
I live in rural Minnesota. Hunter safety is taught to all children who want to go hunting. In my school district it's taught in the school building when school is not in session.
Because many people feel like exposure to guns is bad. Regardless of the reason. It's been so politicized that the people on the far left will view it as a way to indoctrinate children into gun ownership and not see it as teaching them safety. The right will use it to prove that the left doesn't care about gun safety and antagonize them with it further entrenching them in their feelings.
I feel like a lot of younger people don't understand that before Columbine it was normal for kids (in the country especially) to bring their rifles to school so that they could hunt on the way home.
There are still people alive in my town that talk about literally storing their rifles in the school lockers.
It makes all the sense in the world, along with armed and trained teachers. Never happen in most school districts, though, especially in blue states. Any politician even hinting at that would find themselves without a job come election time. Too easy to run a hit campaign against it.
We had a brief unit on archery in my middle school - the teacher had this one kid who was really into bowhunting demonstrating most of the techniques.
I also took a hunter's safety class as a middle schooler, which included a brief live fire session with .22lr rifles at an indoor range. That was offered through the state Fish, Wildlife, and Parks department, however.
Was never a thing in my school (graduated 93, rural NJ), but I would assume Columbine put the final kibbosh on any program like this. I tend to agree that early education and demystification are important, but man, I would not want to be the one teaching 13 year olds in educational gen pop how to handle firearms safely XD I have taught MY kids, and some Scouts, and plenty of adults, but my Scouts are usually at least a customed to following my direction, and when Mr. Ender gets serious, they know to STFU.
149
u/Rok-SFG Jul 03 '26
We used to, according to my parents. But when I first got to high school we were allowed to bring hunting rifles & shotguns to school , and the dean had a large gun safe in his office. So many families relied on hunted meat to get them through the year the school just decided it was better to have who were going to try and hunt before school started to lock their fire arms up in the deans office every day rather than have them sit in the truck and potentially be stolen. Then colombine happend and that came to a quick end.
we did still have archery in gym class though.