Yes...your generation all believe they are victims. Poor things.
Generational bias my hind end.
Not all young people think that they are 'victims'. There are a lot of young people these days who have done "everything right" who haven't been rewarded with the life they were promised. Do you know how many of your waiters, stockboys, and gas station attendants have BA's and MA's? Do you know that a great deal of them work very hard for very, very little pay? All they did was exactly what everyone told them they were supposed to do. The attitude you are expressing about these people builds a lot of generational resentment.
Not all young people are smelly hippies camping out on Wall Street. A whole lot of them are eyeball-deep in debt, working two jobs that are both beneath them, in the hopes that someday they'll reap the rewards that fell into your generation's lap. These kids didn't start the welfare state, but they're the ones who will pay for it looong after you've exhausted your 'fair share' of Social Security and Medicare. The only difference is that they'll have a lot less of a 'fair share' than you'll enjoy. I guess that's because you don't see yourself as a 'victim' like they do, right?
As far as the topic goes, I teach in an inner-city public school, and a simple "gun safety" lecture is about as far as you could legally take the idea of gun safety in the classroom. You could teach a few firearm basics, what to do if you encounter a firearm, that sort of thing. Beyond that, there is too much liability to actually have kids handling real firearms at school. Sure, most kids could handle it. But when it comes to public schools, it only takes one kid on one day to create a very regrettable situation.
I agree that it is unfortunate that more kids don't have practical experience with firearms, but this is something that would be better taught by that antiquated teaching team called 'parents'. Let's not add 'gun safety' to the long list of our children's shortcomings that we blame wrongly on public schools instead of Mom and Dad. Teaching gun safety in school sounds warm and fuzzy and nostalgic to some of you, but about an hour in my classroom would have you singing a different tune. The world has changed, parenting isn't always what it used to be, and a good portion of today's youth don't have the background knowledge or maturational readiness to handle some of the things that some of you envision. Just wouldn't work.
And by the way, I'll check back on this thread over the weekend, but come Monday, I'll be back to my 90-hour work week being a lazy, overpaid Union member, and enjoying my 'Cadillac' benefit package that is worse than my benefits were when I worked as a retail associate (which I was for five years while I worked two jobs looking for the one I've got now). And I'll do it all with a smile on my face, because I love the kids I teach, I'm proud of what I do, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
