News How can teaching gun safety in schools help prevent gun violence?

[B. Elliott]

Maybe a firearm safety coarse should be required to graduate public high school.

You know, that doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. There are drivers ed and sex ed classes, why not firearm ed? Most high schools I know of now have at least one police officer on duy, why not have that officer also teach firearm safety?

That's one of the better ideas I've heard in a while now.

 

[B. Elliott]

Once upon a time they HAD target shooting as a sporting activity in public high schools. It was mainly .22 cal rifles but I'm sure they learned safety for a week or two before they could even handle their guns. That kind of thing needs to come back. Now that it is understood with some finality that we will always have guns in our community, what better way to teach kids firearm safety than in the classroom?

At my high school the JROTC rifle team used to use .22 rifles, but stepped back to pellet rifles for some reason. When I first started HS I was anxious to get on the rifle team so that I could show everyone else what a 'crack shot' is. I was severely let down when I found out they were only using pellet rifles. The competitions with other local HS's felt a bit... cheezy.