WichitaFallsComplete.com
May 2010
I've never been a "gun nut", but I do believe in the ownership of firearms for home and personal protection. Now comes a story that the state of Virginia is considering offering firearms safety training in elementary schools.
One parent says that her daughter doesn't know what a gun is and that such a class would only cause her to be curious about them. She seemed to be indicating that she was not in favor of the training. One spokesperson countered that other media sources such as TV and the Internet are more apt to cause curiosity about guns than a firearms safety class.
I'm guessing that the odds of a child in Virginia stumbling across a gun in the home are about the same whether they take the class or not. It would seem to me that a class teaching kids not to touch the firearm and to notify an adult would be a pretty good thing.
Reading the early comments, numbering just a few during the first few hours after the article was posted, seemed to be split about 50-50 on the class being a good idea or not. Firearms safety has been offered in may schools across the country for decades. The program is called the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). No, it's not offered in elementary school, just 9th grade and up.
Personally, I'm all for it. If a kid's going to be curious, they're going to be curious. They may as well be armed with the best information about what they're facing.
Now here's one for you. Back in 1967, ROTC cadets at Hirschi High School were authorized, with their parent's permission, to bring a .22 caliber rifle to school to be be fired on the school's indoor firing range. So, here I come carrying my rifle, in a case, up to the school entrance. These days the SWAT team would have appeared out of thin air and I'd be writing this from under the jail!
Maynard