scorpa said:
Assuming that the instructor isn't an idiot, there is nothing wrong with bringing a gun into a class, gun safety classes are very uselful in my opinion. That gun should have been checked multiple times to ensure it was not loaded. I attended a gun safety class when I took Hunter Education, after the class we went out and had the chance to shoot a variety of rifles and shotguns, it was a great, safe, controlled day taught by responsible instructors.
Except the instructor was an idiot. How many people involved in gun accidents
thought they were being careful and
thought the gun wasn't loaded?
Just the tone of his talk leading up to him shooting himself left me thinking that showing these guns off to the kids, had he not shot himself, would have been a completely ineffective way to get them to learn gun safety. If anything, it seemed to have the tone of, "Look at my cool gun, like all the rappers talk about, and I'm the only one here who can play with it," which sounds like something that would be more likely to tempt a kid to want to play with a gun the next time they saw one.
Our gun safety lesson in school was simple...if you see a gun, don't touch it! That would be fairly well undermined if you then handed a kid a gun to hold. Sure, it was followed up with things like never point a gun at anyone, and always assume it's loaded, but the main lesson was that all that should be irrelevant, because you're not going to pick it up in the first place...if you see a gun somewhere, call a grown-up.
It's a very different lesson you teach to little kids about gun safety when the objective is to keep them from accidentally shooting someone when playing with a gun they shouldn't be touching at all, vs what you teach to someone who needs to learn to safely
handle a gun, which is what hunting safety would cover. Even for a hunting safety course, you don't bring a glock into a classroom! I really don't think a gun belongs in a classroom at all, even for hunter education. If you're going to put a gun in the hands of an inexperienced handler with the intent of teaching them to be an experienced handler, it should be outdoors or at a firing range. Unless you want to shoot someone, even a law enforcement officer carrying a loaded weapon indoors should have it holstered. That guy is damn lucky that bullet didn't ricochet and hit a kid!
I think that video clip should be incorporated into every gun safety lesson offered! It really does highlight how carelessness about assuming a gun is not loaded, even in the hands of a supposedly trained professional, can lead to an accident.
I was impressed he held it together long enough to continue talking, but thought he was just going to stop after he explained that bit about anyone can have an accident, and that's why they shouldn't play with guns. I figured he just continued to that point not to frighten the kids more than they already were. But, then to keep going...
). At the end of the class we went of a 3 day long campout where we had to build our own shelter lean-to out of any sticks and logs we could find, survival hikes, learn how to shoot and handle a gun safely, canoeing, archery and so on and so forth. It was a great time, and an experience I will never forget.
