Should firearm safety be taught in public schools?.....

Firearms safety training isn't in the same category as playing ball, much like sex ed.

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Though I agree with this statememt, I have come to a different conclusion.

Other than "basic plumbing" and STDs as part of a life science class, I don't think public schools have any business teaching sex ed either. The reason is that these topics are not "values neutral". And if even if your try to make them values neutral, you have to chose what you're going to talk about and what you don't (i.e. do you include beastiality, pedephilia, etc...). In my experience, whenever the gub'ment pokes it's nose into teaching values, they get it wrong. And they have no business contradicting the values that a parent teaches in the home.

So going back to firearms.... does the class teach that "no honest man could ever need more than 10 rounds", or that "dum dum bullets are evil, cruel and sadistic (unless your the police)".

Any kid that is to stupid to figure out how to put a condom on, is beyond the help of any type of instruction.

Now the "BUT". Teach firearms safety not firearms fear and hatred.

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Public education is FAR to politicized to avoid ideological indoctrination....

I don't really trust the idiology of either of the two dominant political parties.

That's why I'm sticking to my guns on the three R's period.

Their having a hard enough time getting "just the facts" American history correct where my kids attend (a highly touted district).

Extra curricular activities are great.... but I know people who are having to chose between paying their property taxes (80% driven by the cost of public ed.) and paying the employers share of family plan health insurance. Should they have to be taxed out of their home to pay for "fluff".

Yes, it should be an option.

SSN Vet said:

Other than "basic plumbing" and STDs as part of a life science class, I don't think public schools have any business teaching sex ed either. The reason is that these topics are not "values neutral". And if even if your try to make them values neutral, you have to chose what you're going to talk about and what you don't (i.e. do you include beastiality, pedephilia, etc...). In my experience, whenever the gub'ment pokes it's nose into teaching values, they get it wrong. And they have no business contradicting the values that a parent teaches in the home.

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And yet that is exactly what any kind of abstinence based education will do; prevent students from learning safe and responsible behavior due to their parents' ideology and put them at risk. It's one thing for an adult to make a choice to be uneducated, but you have to wonder about the parents who would keep their children in ignorance at the expense of their health. So even if you teach your children firearm safety, what about the other children associated with yours who have been kept in risky ignorance?

I'm not sure why you're concerned that students will be taught on breaking firearms law, much like how current sex ed doesn't teach bestiality or pedophilia.

Any kid that is to stupid to figure out how to put a condom on, is beyond the help of any type of instruction.

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Proper execution would be complete luck of the draw with a program that completely neglects skills.

I wonder how I made it through life, I had firearms training in public high school and no sex education. My dad told me to, "keep it in your pants unless you're planning on getting married," when I was fifteen or thereabouts. Somehow I found out what condoms were for and how to get them without formal education. Somehow I managed to avoid breeding any children until I was married. Gee no kids out of wedlock, no kids by two or three women. I guess it was because I had no proper training in school.

exavid said:

I wonder how I made it through life, I had firearms training in public high school and no sex education. My dad told me to, "keep it in your pants unless you're planning on getting married," when I was fifteen or thereabouts. Somehow I found out what condoms were for and how to get them without formal education. Somehow I managed to avoid breeding any children until I was married. Gee no kids out of wedlock, no kids by two or three women. I guess it was because I had no proper training in school.

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People managed to survive before the advent of antibiotics. There are smokers who have lived to be very old. Yet no reasonable person would say that antibiotics are useless, or that smoking is a healthy endeavor.

People managed to survive before the advent of antibiotics...Yet no reasonable person would say that antibiotics are useless...

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Poor analogy. Giving an infected person an antibiotic has nothing to do with education; a bacterium does not have to be persuaded to (or remember to) die in the presence of the right amount of the right antibiotic.

The question at hand IMHO is whether education about guns significantly alters behavior; and more specifically, whether those most at risk for criminal or negligent use of guns will have their behavior significantly altered by the cursory education about guns that could be part of a public school curriculum.

It's an important question. I am unsure of the answer.

We all know that extended firearms training among those elect that training (and then practice) changes their behavior, but that is not really the question.

Loosedhorse said:

Poor analogy. Giving an infected person an antibiotic has nothing to do with education; a bacterium does not have to be persuaded to (or remember to) die in the presence of the right amount of the right antibiotic.

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This is ignoring the education in the existence and application of the specific antibiotic. One person's success in the absence of education doesn't discredit education, as much as they would prefer it. Just because risky behaviors on their part do not have the expected consequences doesn't make the behaviors less risky.

The question at hand IMHO is whether education about guns significantly alters behavior; and more specifically, whether those most at risk for criminal or negligent use of guns will have their behavior significantly altered by the cursory education about guns that could be part of a public school curriculum.

It's an important question. I am unsure of the answer.

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If sex ed is any indication, it is possible for a public school education to successfully modify behavior towards safer practices.

I don't have a problem with education but what's being done at too many schools today is more like indoctrination. I had a better grasp of mathematics in the eighth grade than most high school grads I've worked around today. I see too many college kids going deeply in debt for degrees that don't help them get a decent paying job. Any gain in earning level of college grads over others who begin working after high school is pretty well eaten up by the typically high debt load paying for tuition.

If sex ed is any indication, it is possible for a public school education to successfully modify behavior towards safer practices.

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I didn't argue that it was impossible that gun education would be effective. Are we prepared to institute something on the theory that it might possibly work?

If we were to continue with the sex education analogy, we'd have to decide which has been effective (there are many opinions): abstinence-only education, or "comprehensive" sex education, neither, or both?

Would classroom firearm education be abstinence-only, or comprehensive? (Not just our preferences, but given the financial and political realities of public schools.)

(I do not wish to delve too much into sex ed, as an extensive discussion of that is off-topic. Suffice it to say that, in the opinon of many, school-based sex education has not been a tremendous success.)

If we were to continue with the sex education analogy, we'd have to decide which has been effective (there are many opinions): abstinence-only education, or "comprehensive" sex education, neither, or both?

Would classroom firearm education be abstinence-only, or comprehensive? (Not just our preferences, but given the financial and political realities of public schools.)

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The failures of abstinence-only education are enough of a hammer to dissuade those who would support abstinence-only firearms education. Since the fundamental goal of abstinence-only education is in maintaining ignorance of safe practices, it is impossible for them to teach both ignorance and education at the same time.

The people who look to school-based sex education and expect a tremendous success have set their expectations too high, and are willing to ignore moderate success. I could cite data to show why the people who think that sex ed was not a success are wrong, but that would be veering too off topic. Suffice to say that there will be people who look similarly on firearms safety education and demand overwhelming success while considering any other progress as a failure.

Nope....Federal law does have a few execptions to it, one of which allow firearms approval to those in charge. It may be a principal or school board etc. I used to bring a Hawkins and a Brown Bess to my son's school for history, to demonstrate the tactics and (in)accuracy.
In a near by public school a child was expelled for bringing a GI Joe doll to school which had a pistol holder moulded to the side of the doll's body. "Don't they know Joe has to draw the pistol in order to fire it!!!!" lol Only God know what they would have done if they saw the hand gernade pinned to GiJoe's shirt

The high school i graduated from offers state recognized hunter's safety as a semester PE class... All of the gun stuff was done as a "field trip" to a local range, with permission slips from parents.
We were lucky enough to have an archery range attached to the school for it

Not only YES, but....

I started my son with safety familiarization at age 5. He's an armed security guard with an impeccable safety record. I definitely a "plus 100. on this issue.

I guess it depends on where you live. Here in my area teachers cant even get basic math and english so kids can sound like they speak english. If thats the best they can do I would rather they not expose them to guns, let the parents or the military do it.