The gun industry, gun rights orgs and America’s 100+ million law-abiding gun owners know that teaching children how to safely handle firearms is the surest way to prevent accidents and tragedies. While the goal, as always, is to prevent unauthorized access to guns, as rational, thinking adults, we know that no everyone is as careful as they should be. Kids will come across firearms.
A child who is trained to handle the situation has a greatly reduced chance of hurting herself or someone else. Now, two Iowa middle schools have recognized that fact and are doing something about it.
Students from the Clarksville and North Butler school districts will learn how to safely handle a gun during a physical education course focusing on hunter safety.
But Joel Foster, the superintendent for both districts, said he hoped the course will prepare students to react in the event of an active shooter situation.
“We’ve done everything to make (students and district employees) as safe as possible at school with cameras … locks,” he said. “We would like them to be able to deal with a situation that comes up.”
What a great idea! Why haven’t America’s gun owners done something like this before?
Oh wait…they have. And they’ve been doing it for decades.
There are industry programs like Project ChildSafe and Eddy Eagle. There are books like Safety On and There’s Only One You. And there are dozens, maybe hundreds of independent programs all across the US designed to teach kids how to responsibly handle a firearm (check out the Guns Save Life summer camp here) and what to do if they find one.
During the course, students will use inoperable guns with replica ammunition.
They will learn how to load and unload ammunition and hold and care for firearms, Foster said. They’ll also learn how to safely carry a gun and how to recognize when a firearm is loaded.
“We know not all kids are going to hunt,” he said. “This is an alternative to sitting on your hands and not doing anything. It’s being proactive to handle things the best manner as possible if something occurs. Through education, kids know guns aren’t toys.”
You might think that training school-age children in safe gun handling with the goal of reducing accidents would be applauded by the so-called “gun safety” operations (don’t laugh). You know, the organizations that work to restrict Americans’ gun rights at every possible opportunity? Yeah, them. Surely they’re for anything that keeps kids safer, right?
Perish the thought. When the Brady Campaign heard about the Iowa schools’ gun safety training, they tweeted this:
Research shows that child safety programs don’t work. “As adults, we have a responsibility for safe stewardship of weapons. Expecting children to practice safe storage on our behalf just isn’t responsible.” https://t.co/s4IifjdJQM #EndFamilyFire @EndFamilyFire
— Brady Campaign (@Bradybuzz) January 18, 2019
Nice straw man there.
We’d point out to the hysterical hypocrites at Brady that “safe storage” has nothing at all to do with the program in Iowa or with teaching children what to do if they come across an un-attended gun, but we won’t waste the electrons. They already know that. Just as they probably know that opposing the kind of training that these schools will provide could very well cost some children their lives.
But they don’t give a damn. Seeing children learn to be responsible around firearms isn’t part of the narrative they push every day. In fact, it’s directly counter to it.
Maybe it’s time drop the pretense and finally stop calling the Brady Campaign, the CSGV, Giffords, Everytown and the hoplophobic harridans at Moms Demand Action “gun safety” organizations. They’re civilian disarmament advocacy operations. Always have been, always will be.