I recently got the NRA-ILA 2010 Truth About Gun Owners (TAG) Poll. The NRA wants me to mark down my opinions about various proposed legislation that threatens our rights as gun owners. In the poll were included HR 45 (the Blair Holt bill), S1317 (Lautenberg's bill to give the Attorney General the power to create secret a "no buy" list), S843 (another Lautenberg masterpiece that would close the gun show "loophole" and generally outlaw gun shows) and HR257 (Introduced by Sheila Jackson-Lee from the Houston area).
I am not particularly worried about HR45 - it's been referred to committee and has no co-sponsors, the same thing that happened to it in the last session of Congress. Lautenberg's stuff has the co-sponsors you'd expect (Everybody from California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Lieberman from Connecticut, and a few others) and has been referred to committee. I can pretty much say that I am opposed to those and make the NRA happy.
However, I wasn't familiar with HR257. The NRA says the bill "...could send you to prison if a criminal steals your gun and uses it in a crime." But, curious person that I am, I looked up the bill myself and found the bill entitled "Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act of 2009" isn't quite as horrible as the NRA claims. Yes, if you allow a minor child to gain access to a handgun, knowing it was likely the child would use it in commission of a crime or to cause injury to another person or himself, or to cause property damage, you could spend some time in the hoosegow (you can already be prosecuted in some states for exactly the same thing). But the bill is intended to require that dealers supply a gun safety or storage device with each firearm, make gun owners responsible for securing their firearms and raises the age for handgun or "semiautomaitc assault weapon" ownership to 21. So you really have to be almost involved with the crime to get in trouble for your gun being used in it.
It also requires a minor to be accompanied by an adult at a gun show. I am in favor of that, just from having seen some kids at gun shows whose parents weren't watching them or just didn't care what they did.
What is especially interesting is Sections 7 and 8 of the bill. Section 7 calls for the Attorney General to set up grants for law enforcement agencies to teach gun safety to parents and their children. Section 8 reads as follows:
"It is the sense of Congress that--
"(1) each school district should provide or participate in a firearms safety program for students in grades kindergarten through 12 and should consult with a certified firearms instructor before establishing the curriculum for the program; and
"(2) participation by students in a firearms safety program should not be mandatory if the district receives written notice from a parent of the student to exempt the student from the program. "
Here is the text of the entire bill at Govtrack:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-257
So this piece of legislation, which also has no co-sponsors and has been sent to committee, is actually saying schools should include gun safety in their curriculum. This would mean they also must teach some familiarity with firearms, even if it's only theoretical (somehow I just don't see our local school board cranking out a purchase order for a couple hundred 22s).
Somehow, I can't help but think that some familiarity with firearms beats pretending they don't exist or that they're inherently evil, etc.
Actually, I suppose we all need to get more involved not only with our children's education but maybe even take some responsibility for that education. If enough of us run for a seat on the school board, perhaps we can change some of the things we complain about: silly attitudes about drawings or pretend guns and some of the more brain-dead "zero-tolerance" policies. Let's demand the grown-ups in the schools
act like grown-ups and make rational decisions based on the facts and situation. And, if they can't or don't want to, we'd be in a position to replace them.
