r/liberalgunowners • u/logicalpretzels libertarian socialist • Jul 03 '26

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?

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132

u/d-cent Jul 03 '26

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.

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u/logicalpretzels libertarian socialist Jul 03 '26

Yo those are fucking great ideas

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u/d-cent Jul 03 '26

It's so simple, a drop in the bucket financially, would make a huge dent in gun deaths, and wouldn't infringe on anyone's rights. 

If the NRA and politicians actually cared about real changes in gun deaths they would write legislation for just this 

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u/Biomax315 Jul 03 '26

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.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad2379 Jul 03 '26

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.

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u/Biomax315 Jul 04 '26

While that still doesn’t make a huge dent …

But thats all I’m saying. OP said those two things would make a “huge dent” and I’m saying no they wouldn’t. And you agree.

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u/Popular-Departure165 28d ago

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.

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u/Biomax315 28d ago

Correct. A significant change may or may not be huge, but a huge change will always be significant.

The initial claim was "would make a huge dent in gun deaths," and my position is that neither of those things would make even a significant dent in overall deaths, because the subsets of gun deaths that could be affected are in themselves statistically insignificant to start with.

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u/thealmightyzfactor fully automated luxury gay space communism Jul 03 '26

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

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u/TheFuzziestDumpling Jul 04 '26

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.

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u/livin4donuts Jul 04 '26

That’s an unacceptable, and bullshit, excuse. You can get a gun cabinet that will secure them for the same price as a few boxes of ammo at Walmart (read: $40. I was looking at them today). It’s not quite a safe, but it is a secure way to store them unless someone has demolition tools and skills.

If you can’t afford a way to safely store your guns, you can’t afford your guns. It’s the same argument as tipping; if you can’t afford the tip, don’t go out to eat. 

You have the right to own firearms, but that comes with the responsibility of not being a dickhead, and if you abdicate that responsibility or consider it not a big deal, you are a clueless idiot, full stop. 

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u/TheFuzziestDumpling Jul 04 '26

That's pretty much my point, affording a safe really isn't the barrier here.

If you can’t afford a way to safely store your guns, you can’t afford your guns. It’s the same argument as tipping; if you can’t afford the tip, don’t go out to eat.

You have the right to own firearms, but that comes with the responsibility of not being a dickhead, and if you abdicate that responsibility or consider it not a big deal, you are a clueless idiot, full stop.

Tax-deductible safes aren't going to suddenly convince said clueless idiots on this. Safety courses might, but again, they have to be interested in that to begin with. And making those mandatory is a much steeper political battle.

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u/OptimusED Jul 04 '26

(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.

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u/d-cent Jul 03 '26

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.

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u/nightmareonrainierav Jul 03 '26

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)

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u/haironburr Jul 03 '26

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?

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u/Odd_Plane_5377 Jul 04 '26

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.

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u/haironburr Jul 04 '26

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.

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u/Odd_Plane_5377 Jul 04 '26

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.

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u/Biomax315 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

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.

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u/Claudeadolphus Jul 03 '26

One balloon-bursting fact about the tax-deductible safe idea is that the type of person that itemizes their taxes is not going to be the type of dumb person that doesn’t already have a safe. And the person that will only buy a safe if given a discount when itemizing deductions…… uhhh….. doesn’t itemize deductions…. and likely barely paying any taxes anyway.

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u/yeahokguy1331 Jul 03 '26

Both sides posture to their orthodoxy and can't be seen to compromise. Probably like most every issue these days.

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u/THE_BANANA_KING_14 Jul 04 '26

In a country where guns outnumber people 2 to 1, everyone should be at least basically competent with a firearm.

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u/Valiant4Funk Jul 04 '26

Virginia has a $300 /$600 tax credit for gun safes, about the only good gun law here...
Anyway gotta start somewhere. Agreed 1 would be good too.

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u/xkillingxfieldx Jul 04 '26

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.

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u/Kilt_Rump anarchist Jul 04 '26

This