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While much of Europe continues to shy away from firearms, Poland has taken a bold step forward, implementing mandatory firearms training for school students in response to growing concerns over Russia’s aggression. According to reports from Express U.S., the Polish Ministry of Education and Science launched the program to equip young people with the skills and mindset necessary to defend their country–all lessons even our own country should heed.

The initiative began in the 2023-2024 school year, following a transitional period after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Ministry declared that “current challenges and threats require supplementing the goals of education” with state defense training, shooting skills and preparedness for hostilities. The training starts in primary schools, focusing on safe weapon handling, and progresses to secondary schools, where students learn the basics of shooting through practical exercises using air guns, replicas and laser systems.

While students aren’t training with live ammunition, the importance of the program isn’t lost on those involved.

“I think it’s a good idea. Life is scary these days. So, you have to be prepared for anything,” said Marta Stolinska, a Polish student.

The program has drawn praise from educators and parents alike. A primary school principal described the training as “valuable,” given the current state of the world. A parent expressed pride in their children’s patriotism and readiness to “defend our country.”

The training aligns with Poland’s broader efforts to prepare its citizens for potential conflict. Earlier this year, the Polish armed forces launched “Holidays with the Army,” a summer training program for adults aged 18-35. Participants in the 28-day program learned combat skills, shooting, and other military techniques. The program exceeded its target of 10,000 volunteers, reflecting a growing sense of urgency among Poles to bolster their national defense.

Col. Pawel Galazka, a commander involved in the program, emphasized the significance of these efforts, noting, “Everyone knows about the threat that comes from the east.” Poland shares borders with Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which reportedly houses about 100 tactical nuclear warheads.

The Polish government’s commitment to readiness extends beyond its borders. As Express reported, Poland has provided over 4.5 billion Euros worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including helicopters, tanks and artillery. The Ministry of National Defense called Poland “the undisputed leader and innovator in helping Ukraine since the beginning of the war.”

While critics may balk at the idea of introducing firearms training into schools, Poland’s leaders and citizens recognize the necessity of preparation. Unlike much of Europe, Poland understands that ensuring its citizens—especially its youth—respect and know how to use firearms is not just about self-defense. It’s about survival in an increasingly uncertain world.

As one parent succinctly put it, “We are very proud that our children want to be on the right side of history.” In the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland is taking proactive steps to ensure its future generations are ready to meet the challenges of a volatile geopolitical landscape head-on.

48 COMMENTS

  1. I spend over 3 months a year teaching American youth to safely & accurately shoot pistols, rifles and shotguns. These youth ages 8-18 think they are having fun, but I know better,

  2. They all better get on the bus to being responsible for their own National Defense. The US isn’t going to be continuing to fund Proxy Wars under the new administration, and we’ve been depleting materiel stocks to dangerously low levels for our own defense.

  3. Is Poland worth defending or has it become a welcome mat welfare state for bronze age third world gang rapists like most of the rest of Europe?

    The kids may want to take a step back and have a long look before deciding which national elites they want to die for.

    • To answer your question, Poland is the one and only European country that said hell no to illegal immigrants and arab refugees. The EU says it’s against the law, and Poland said too bad, we are blocking ALL asylum seekers.

      Poland appears to be the Texas of the EU.

      • Hungary is like Poland. Refused to take in migrants. And has a real national border fence. Unlike the USA. Hungary vigorously enforces it’s national borders.

        Both have a long memories of the USSR occupation.

        • Both also know a little something about the tyranny of the Ottoman empire and Islamic jihad. Polish king Jan Sobieski and his men saved Europe at the Ottoman siege of Vienna.

  4. Unlike spoon fed Americanos the Polish students are learning the world does not revolve around them…

    h ttps://youtu.be/7A3zBe1zWRg?feature=shared

  5. Waiting for my son now. He bought one of the new Galils in 7.62X39 the other day and also put some optics on his 7.62X51 Tavor. He’s about to bust a gut to get on the range. I think a school shooting program is a good idea, but John never needed one. He understands the real world.

      • Dude, it’s not any heavier than my Action Arms Galil ARM in .556. And after all, his is 7.62X39. I just shot it. John and his cousin have a range on Chris’s property. I can hear them shooting when I’m at the farm so I often drive around there. Not a problem to ring 8″ plates at 100 yards off hand. I want one. This is the thing, it only set him back $1300.

        • It (7.62×39 ACE) went from a gen 1 weight of 7.5 lbs to a gen 2 weight of 8 lbs 12.6 oz. And it’s almost half a pound heavier than the gen 2 7.62 NATO. The only reason I knew that is because I was on the verge of picking up a gen 1 when they announced the gen 2. Then I saw the weight and decided against it. I assume the new barrel and hand guard added weight. Broken links below so comment doesn’t get moderated.

          h ttps://iwi.us/firearms/galil-ace-gen-2/7-62x39mm-with-side-folding-adjustable-buttstock/

          h ttps://iwi.us/firearms/galil-ace/7-62x39mm-2/

      • Xdduly, no. Tallahassee, but it does enjoy one of the highest homicide rates in the state of Florida, so there’s that.

        • Look, up in the sky.
          Is it a bird?
          Is it a plane?
          I don’t know but what ever it was it went right over my head.

  6. My brother lived in Warsaw several years running an international insurance company. Liked it a lot. And a woman we do business with regularly buys clothes etc in Poland. Met a lot of Polish folks in Chicago too. Good on them & Stolat!

    • more poles here than bass pro. on milwaukee avenue they can cradle to grave and never learn english.
      hetman’s deli has zero english writing on any product.
      and the young ‘uns still wear spike heels an’ fishnets, bless ’em.

  7. I’ve had the same mindset — ever since Obama was elected. While I owned a few guns before then, I really started acquiring firearms and ammo when The Anointed One entered the Whitehouse.

    That mindset has aged well.

  8. Anyone who against teaching children about guns and their second amendment civil rights. Is the same as the person who is against children learning to read.

    And yes in the 21st century there are people who are against children learning to read. They pull children out of school to attend a protest march. They bring condoms and p orn into the classroom setting. But no guns for students to learn about safety and proper handling.

  9. The second amendment can be taught in math class.

    Ballistic calculations. rifle barrel rifling ratio. Weight and balance. trigger pull weight calculations etc.

    The 2A in science class.

    Bullet power chemistry. Bullet arc projectory. Bullet performance in jell blocks. Temperature effects on rifle barrels and ammunition.

    The 2A in literature.

    The 2A in English Grammer.

    The 2A in physical education.

    Rifle drills. Rifle PT. Marksmanship. Proper maintenance. etc.

    The second amendment can be taught in every part of a child’s daily school schedule. You just have to be willing to do it.

    • edit
      The 2A in art class.

      Drawing and describing the internal parts of a firearm.

      Making a gun in the classroom. Using wood, paper, metal, etc.

      Engraving images on to firearm surfaces.

      Creating images of guns.

      Using Paint, ink pens, lead pencils, crayons, colored chalk, cloth, etc.

      What else can you think of?

        • I think in a Home ec class students should bake a cake and decorate it to look like a gun.

          Yummy
          😃

      • haha lavatory brake, see how. easy to pissaway thousands tryeing to keep up with latest halfta haves.

      • The 2A can be taught in a lot more useful required courses: History, Civics, and Government. All courses I had to take when I was in high school, which admittedly was more than 4 decades ago.

        If Trump/DOGE really do follow through with disbanding the Department of Indoctrination (er, well, they call it “Education”), that would put an end to this teacher union dictating a nationwide litany of indoctrination points. Good times ahead!

    • Chris, you’re right. I met my now ex in college after my time in the army. She was in a physics class and was given a problem to solve. Calculate the energy of a three round burst from a machine gun weighing X, firing bullets weighing Y at a velocity of Z. She kept coming up just a little off. I asked to look at the problem. After about ten seconds I said, “You need to calculate the amount of energy expended in recoil, multiply that times three and factor that into your original equation.” She was sceptical. Not so much when she came to me later in the semester and asked me if I knew how things like trajectory and defilade applied to indirect fire. Understand, these are things I knew before I enlisted in the army, because, everyone just should.

        • The NRA was originally created because civil war soldiers had terrible marksmanship. Especially the black soldiers. So the commanding generals thought the civilian population should know as much as possible, about the guns and marksmanship.

          Shooting competitions with both shotguns, rifles, and handguns were as common all across the country, as baseball football or basketball games.

          Unfortunately that has changed.

      • I’ve said this before. The “gun community” does a terrible job of teaching the 2A to everyone. They promote buying guns. And that is about it.

        They don’t really promote marksmanship. They don’t really match the gun to the person. They don’t match the proper ammo to the gun and the mission.

        A 100 years ago the “gun community” was pretty good at all of this. But not now.

  10. Chernobyl contamination levels drop.
    The wheatlands of Ukraine can produce again.
    Reagan sanctions..
    Bush legs, Endrogan eggs.
    Nevermore.
    I suppose the United States needs to dump NATO. It would be quite confusing when our allies are confronted with choosing sides during Trumps imperialistic acquisitions of Canada and Greenland.
    . Poland’s two man minesweeping team.
    One guy holding the ear’s of the other guy who is holding a metal detector both walking backward.
    Teach your children well.

    • Xdduly, Canada had their chance to live free a long time ago. Why would we want to saddle ourselves with that socialist cesspool now? Greenland? I think Trump said something about buying it. You like Thomas Jefferson did with the Louisiana Purchase and Seward’s Folly that has made Alaska a vital part of our national security. Can you imagine if Putin had control of Alaska? Besides, what did Denmark do besides plant a flag? Isn’t that imperialism?

      • Once trump acquires Greenland I hope I’m the first to play on his new golf course.
        you think trump cares about the constitution?
        Only if it can make him money.
        I voted for the man because the other choice was worse.
        That’s real freedom, choosing the lesser of two evils.

  11. To Poland, the war started in 1939 and ended in 1991. In 1945 they swapped one murderous totalitarian regime for another. One of many reasons why they and other countries APPLIED to join NATO.

  12. FDR sold Poland to Stalin behind closed doors.

    FDR actually had romanticism for the old Russian Empire, and believed that Stalin would build a “less corrupt” and more “benevolent” Russian Empire.

    • the man on the dime that my great uncles glued all around the toilet rim was less in touch when yalta convened than spongebrainpoopspants is now.

  13. Growing up in Alaska in the 60’s, my grade school had a shooting range in the basement. We were taught basic marksmanship and gun safety. Parents could sign kids up for Advanced marksmanship classes. No one ever shot themselves or accidents. I still remember those old Anshutz single shot .22 lr rifles with the peep sights. This should be a program nationwide, but I digress, I believe in common sense, which is like a superpower in 2025.

  14. I am kind of surprised that nations are still anticipating that modern warfare will revolve around firearms, artillery, missiles, and airstrikes. It would seem to me that an aggressor could conquer a nation through shutting down their infrastructure–both via remote/cyber attacks as well as direct sabotage. The populace and therefore a nation will not last very long if they lose communications, banking, water, electricity, natural gas, propane, gasoline, and diesel fuel.

    Due to the largely centralized nature of infrastructure, I have to imagine that it requires VASTLY fewer resources to cripple/destroy it rather than trying to subdue the populace via conventional kinetic actions.

    • Was the focus of several reports I submitted over the years. At best ignored as I don’t meet the preferred demographics at worst may be used as a blueprint to improve upon (in which case I am glad they would be more than a decade out of date). Thankfully NY is more proactive with adapting to threat profiles.

  15. uncommon_sense, that is a massive dose of sense.

    Historically, computers have gone through a cycle of localized-distributed-localized-distributed. When we first started, everybody had a dumb terminal and an ancient tech modem that we stuck an old phone receiver into, to call up the main computer. Then in the ’80’s Apple invented the personal computer, moving the processing power home. They got more and more powerful, ’til a tipping point was reached and they got too expensive, so people started moving to a more distributed system again, all the megapower is now giant computer systems and “the cloud”. And it’ll change again.

    America was founded on the local control of firearms and security. Heck, the Constitution says a standing Army is unconstitutional, and laws were localized among the 13 to 50 states and DC was a tiny place with a specific mission about tariffs and foreign relations. Since then we’ve gotten massively centralized, we’ve outsourced our jobs, our safety (police), and the centralized federal government has grown to unimaginable proportions.

    And it’s unsustainable. And people are starting to notice that the outsourced big power system just doesn’t work very well. So cycles being cycles, I have a strong feeling that we’re at the beginning of a massive shift back to local control. DOGE claims to want to shrink the government dramatically. States like Texas have started policing and controlling their own border because federal border control doesn’t work. People are arming themselves at an unheard of pace, on all sides of the political spectrum, because they’re realizing that the police, instead of protecting them from crime, have morphed into an agency of “well, after the crime’s already happened, we’ll try to figure out who did it.” Which doesn’t work for a lot of us, so we’re choosing to bring protection local, to our own households. News was a gigantic monopoly of a very few megacorporations, and people have figured out that it just doesn’t work so they’ve been choosing wildly distributed podcasts and independent journalists like Andy Ngo. This cycle is happening everywhere, the shift back to localization rather than outsourced.

    And as far as energy goes, our giant national grid is rickety, creaky, and incredibly prone to attacks and failure. So lots and lots of companies and families are moving to provide their own, independent grid; home solar has dramatically increased in the last few years and should continue to do so. If the main grid goes down, it doesn’t affect me all that much in my daily life, but obviously with all the interconnection still existing it will still certainly destroy the business world. But some of them are on the same decentralization train.

    Which is all to say: you’re absolutely right, but also: I think the attitude has shifted and the pendulum is swinging back, and we’re well on our way to lessening our dependence on giant centralized infrastructure (as well as mostly everything else).

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