Do you think gun safety should be taught in schools?

[DopeyDame]

I believe what people are talking about in this thread is to teach students how to handle a gun...not simply how to respond if they happen to see one. So now all teachers have to be educated themselves on how to handle a gun even if they don't want to.

I referred to teaching in general becoming missionary work these days.

Nothing I've read suggests that the class is intended to "teach students how to handle a gun" and in fact is explicity designed to "teach kids how to respond if they happen to see one."

From the original article posted: "The purpose of the program will be to promote safety and protection of children and emphasize how students should respond if they encounter a firearm,"

Teachers will not need to learn how to fire a gun to teach this class. I suspect in many places it can and will be taught effectively without an actual gun being involved at all.

Like several others have said, it's the people with an attitude of "it's not important because my kid will never encounter a gun" who are far more at risk of accidental gun injury or death than kids from households where guns are prevelant and where kids are taught appropriate safety from a very young age.

For the record, I've never held a gun in my life, and I don't suspect I ever will. That won't stop me from teaching my son to "stop, don't touch, find an adult" should he ever encounter a gun.

 

[LisaR]

Superior, no. Different, yes. Canada, yes. As you may know, our gun control laws are somewhat more strict. Incidents of children killing each other when they play with loaded guns are quite rare.

If I lived in Canada I would still educate my child on gun safety, but it just wouldn't be as important of an issue as it is here in the states. That is the very unfortunate reality of living in the USA.

 

[minnie mum]

It's your assumption that your child won't come into contact with guns that makes your child a risk. Mine probably won't come across an unsecured gun, but i make the assumption they might and teach them accordingly. That was my earlier point.

The thing is, my assumption that my child won't come into contact with guns is based on my country's gun control laws. Imperfect as they are, the likelihood of this happening is VERY small compared to the likelihood of this happening if we were living in the US.

We have never had a gun in our house, but of course have taught our children to never touch one. IIRC, the discussion arose after watching news coverage of just such an incident.

I think that in any environment where access to and storage of firearms is uncontrolled, it just becomes much more a necessity that this instruction be moved into the school, that's all.

 

[okeydokey]

I believe what people are talking about in this thread is to teach students how to handle a gun...not simply how to respond if they happen to see one. So now all teachers have to be educated themselves on how to handle a gun even if they don't want to.

I referred to teaching in general becoming missionary work these days.

I'm not. I don't think schools should teach students to handle guns. I think they should teach them what to do if they come across a weapon.

 

[gina2000]

No, I'd like to see schools return to the concept of solid academic education and I'd like to see parents actually fulfill their obligations to teach their children all the "life skills" agenda stuff that is continuously getting pushed onto the schools because parents suck.

Why have parents? Let the state raise the children. We are at the point where schools are providing so much support, time, and money to non academic subjects, that we don't need parents anymore. It's a sad day in America when schools have to teach students what to do if they see a gun.

 

[MomofIndigo]

I think this would work well with the DARE program and police officers teaching it. Im sorry if schools have dropped that program due to ineffectiveness, my DD tells me all the time that smoking is a drug and im killing her by making her lungs black... so yeah at a young age its effective.
Id be fine if something was taught in school to say if you see a gun, run and tell an adult. What if my youngest child who's never seen a gun was at a friends house and found one?

I agree with this. I was part of the DARE program and I remember coming home and telling my parents about it and telling my dad he is killing himself, etc... but we continued to expand on what I was taught at school at home. For instance, "Stop, Drop, and Roll" we all made a fire escape plan for the house and practiced.

So if the plan is more along these lines then I think it is good. We are a home with out any guns now but we had them. They were locked away and hidden so DD has never seen one but I would want her to know what to do if she ever saw one if she was at someone else's home.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

The thing is, my assumption that my child won't come into contact with guns is based on my country's gun control laws. Imperfect as they are, the likelihood of this happening is VERY small compared to the likelihood of this happening if we were living in the US.

We have never had a gun in our house, but of course have taught our children to never touch one. IIRC, the discussion arose after watching news coverage of just such an incident.

I think that in any environment where access to and storage of firearms is uncontrolled, it just becomes much more a necessity that this instruction be moved into the school, that's all.

I would agree that the likelihood of your child finding a gun is less where guns are less common. OTOH, there are still millions of guns in Canada and even if the law states they must be stored (and I don't know that it does), you have NO way of knowing who may or may not be in compliance. You also have laws regarding the speed you can travel in a car. Does that law prevent speeding?

 

[FireDancer]

Why have parents? Let the state raise the children. We are at the point where schools are providing so much support, time, and money to non academic subjects, that we don't need parents anymore. It's a sad day in America when schools have to teach students what to do if they see a gun.

There are some areas where this is true but we had the police and firemen come in to talk to us about things like fire safety and gun safety when I was a kid. We had Junior Achievement in 7th grade where the CEO of American Greetings came in and taught us how to balance a check book, what paying the minimum on a credit card balance means long term, filed a fake tax return so we understood what that was like, and some other life skills that are good to know.

Having school taking on the role of parents is a problem now a days in some respects but these kinds of programs are not new and are definitely not examples of it.

 

[gina2000]

There are some areas where this is true but we had the police and firemen come in to talk to us about things like fire safety and gun safety when I was a kid. We had Junior Achievement in 7th grade where the CEO of American Greetings came in and taught us how to balance a check book, what paying the minimum on a credit card balance means long term, filed a fake tax return so we understood what that was like, and some other life skills that are good to know.

Having school taking on the role of parents is a problem now a days in some respects but these kinds of programs are not new and are definitely not examples of it.

Perhaps in your area this is not new, but we never had and do not have American Greetings coming in to teach life skills. We have fire safety, DARE and a host of other programs that cut into learning time. The brakes need to be put on....how much more should a school be asked to do? Besides the obvious time factor, money is also a problem. There must be a point where parents do the obvious....parent.

Teachers and administrator are under the gun to raise students' reading and math skills. Parents, colleges, and businesses complain that students are not ready to assume the responsibilities necessary to succeed. The school's job is to educate students in preparation to assume leadership roles in society. The parents' job is to help their children grow up and cope with life.

Having said that, I do agree that children should be taught how to respond to firearms if they see them. But is it really up to the school?

 

[iheartdisney]

I have no problem with it. The same arguement that is applied to sex ed applies to guns- kids are going to do it anyway, they need to know how to do it safely and responsibly.

 

[MSSANDRA]

I agree with a couple points. Core subjects are very important and there is less and less time to spend in them. HOWEVER....education is far more than teaching a child to read a book. It's about teaching them to become productive members of society. I also agree than parents need to parent! Reality is that often times they neglect that duty.

In many school districts, the school feeds all the children breakfast so they will not be too hungry to learn. In some districts, they send home learning kits so parents will play with their children. Most school have dental programs where they check kids teeth, and all school keep up with children's immunizations.
Parents should be teaching school age children about gun safety and water safety and strange animal safety and many other things but sometimes it just does not happen.

If a 30 minute class can save a child's life, why not????? You can not teach a dead child to read. Our schools all have a resource officer and they do programs throughout the year and in our area guns are huge and I know they do address this issue!

Any child CAN encounter a gun and to not recognize that fact is naive and dangerous. Someone needs to teach children what to do if this happens and this information is just as important as leaning anything else.

 

[WDSearcher]

Why have parents? Let the state raise the children. We are at the point where schools are providing so much support, time, and money to non academic subjects, that we don't need parents anymore. It's a sad day in America when schools have to teach students what to do if they see a gun.

It's a sad day in America when schools have to bring in grief counselors because one of their students thought the gun they saw was a toy and accidentally shot and killed themselves.

 

[WDSearcher]

Perhaps in your area this is not new, but we never had and do not have American Greetings coming in to teach life skills. We have fire safety, DARE and a host of other programs that cut into learning time. The brakes need to be put on....how much more should a school be asked to do? Besides the obvious time factor, money is also a problem. There must be a point where parents do the obvious....parent.

Teachers and administrator are under the gun to raise students' reading and math skills. Parents, colleges, and businesses complain that students are not ready to assume the responsibilities necessary to succeed. The school's job is to educate students in preparation to assume leadership roles in society. The parents' job is to help their children grow up and cope with life.

Having said that, I do agree that children should be taught how to respond to firearms if they see them. But is it really up to the school?

Interesting turn of phrase.

School is the most logical place, since children are there for many years of their lives and they are "primed to learn" when in that environment. And no one here seems to be talking about a 16-week comprehensive safety course. They're talking about 30 min twice a year. Kids probably spend more time than that in class celebrating each others' birthdays or doing busywork.

If the parents can't be relied upon to teach gun safety, and you don't want to use the school ... then what is your suggestion for where this could be taught? And while "Boys & Girls Clubs" or other similar organizations are possibilities, not every kid goes to clubs or activities outside of school. But they all go to school.

 

[Colleen27]

Absolutely not. I think it is a valuable lesson, but our schools are overburdened enough without taking it upon themselves to teach every valuable life lesson that some parents fail to impart. And it isn't likely to be effective, any more than similar one-time assembly-type "lessons" about internet safety, drug use, smoking, or other life-skills are effective.

 

[Southernmiss]

Interesting turn of phrase.

School is the most logical place, since children are there for many years of their lives and they are "primed to learn" when in that environment. And no one here seems to be talking about a 16-week comprehensive safety course. They're talking about 30 min twice a year. Kids probably spend more time than that in class celebrating each others' birthdays or doing busywork.

Yes! My kids talk of down time after the standardized tests. Usually they end for us on Thursday and the teachers don't start new material on Friday. So why not? Surely there's 30 minutes there to cover a few life lessons parents may or may not be teaching at home.

 

[Colleen27]

I think this would work well with the DARE program and police officers teaching it. Im sorry if schools have dropped that program due to ineffectiveness, my DD tells me all the time that smoking is a drug and im killing her by making her lungs black... so yeah at a young age its effective.

I agree with this. I was part of the DARE program and I remember coming home and telling my parents about it and telling my dad he is killing himself, etc...

The test isn't how the kids feel the day they come home from the program, though. It is how well the information is retained and applied, and by that measure DARE is a failure - it doesn't decrease the rates of drug, alcohol, or tobacco use in the long run, no matter how strongly kids feel about smoking when that image of a smoker's lung is fresh in their minds.

 

[Southernmiss]

The test isn't how the kids feel the day they come home from the program, though. It is how well the information is retained and applied, and by that measure DARE is a failure - it doesn't decrease the rates of drug, alcohol, or tobacco use in the long run, no matter how strongly kids feel about smoking when that image of a smoker's lung is fresh in their minds.

Wasn't there a report out in the last month that teen smoking is down in the US? Don't think we can directly correlate DARE to it, but it couldn't hurt.

 

[Colleen27]

Wasn't there a report out in the last month that teen smoking is down in the US? Don't think we can directly correlate DARE to it, but it couldn't hurt.

It has been fairly well established that cost is the most effective deterrent to new smokers. Educational efforts have been going on for many years with limited results, but the heaping on of sin taxes on tobacco products led to declining rates of teens and young adults taking up smoking... and it even breaks down regionally, with lower rates in places with more expensive cigarettes and higher rates in places where they're cheaper.

As far as whether it could hurt... I think the single biggest problem facing the American educational system is the continued willingness to fund and mandate well-intentioned and politically or socially popular programs even in the face of evidence that they are ineffectual or even counter-productive. To look at DARE specifically, it is shown to have no impact at all on drug experimentation in the long term and costs taxpayers an estimated 1 billion dollars every year. For that kind of money, shouldn't we expect a program to be either effective or eliminated?

 

[Southernmiss]

It has been fairly well established that cost is the most effective deterrent to new smokers. Educational efforts have been going on for many years with limited results, but the heaping on of sin taxes on tobacco products led to declining rates of teens and young adults taking up smoking... and it even breaks down regionally, with lower rates in places with more expensive cigarettes and higher rates in places where they're cheaper.

As far as whether it could hurt... I think the single biggest problem facing the American educational system is the continued willingness to fund and mandate well-intentioned and politically or socially popular programs even in the face of evidence that they are ineffectual or even counter-productive. To look at DARE specifically, it is shown to have no impact at all on drug experimentation in the long term and costs taxpayers an estimated 1 billion dollars every year. For that kind of money, shouldn't we expect a program to be either effective or eliminated?

I did read some of the reports about the ineffective results of DARE, and the reports also cited other programs that could be more effective than DARE.

I am not one to usually want more govt programs. ( I don't agree with public school funded preschool programs that are being promoted in my area. ) But I do think a school resource officer or other police officer teaching once or twice a year about gun safety would not hurt and shouldn't cost a billion dollars collectively.

I do work with lots of teens and have personally witnessed the students adverse reaction to the idea of smoking and drinking increase in the last few years. In my experience, smoking and drinking among high school students has decreased.

By the way, my ds who just completed 8th grade came home and told me how he answered an anonymous drug questionnaire, and he thought it would be fun to lie and say he did drugs daily throughout the survey. So to ask silly adolescents such questions was pretty ineffective. And I know what he does because he's always at home with me.

Also, the article the op referred to sites that the NRA program to be implemented would be funded through private grants and not government $$.

 

[kacaju]

It would never go over here in my town.. heck, the parents do not even allow the kids around here use their hand as a gun.. I can't imagine they would allow the schools to talk about guns in any way.