Should firearm use and safety be a required subject in school?

Jerry said:

How do you think it would be received best? As skeet shooting, hunting, marksmanship? Perhaps trick shooting?

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Trick shooting ooh i choose that one!

Skeet is probably more standard and the easiest logistically to teach.

I'd rather they forced martial arts on students, though. Heheh.

Goshin said:

You say that as if the concept is something new. :mrgreen:




I would have to question that statement. In my early 20's I lived in a fairly large city... and let me tell you, I was VERY glad to be armed and it had nothing to do with Bambi for supper!

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Well then I would totally support YOU getting firearm safety training before getting a gun...but you're in the minority in most large cities. Most urbanites don't have guns, and therefore there's not really any reason to make ALL students take a class on it.

Jerry said:

When the agenda is to have citizens safely using firearms, what kind of response do you want?

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If you read his post, you'll see that that isn't his agenda at all. It's to be able to argue more effectively against gun control advocates. I'm highly skeptical of any argument along the lines of "We should implement Policy X so that critics of my agenda will no longer have Argument Y." That's fine if it's merely incidental to some actual benefit from Policy X, but he framed it as the main reason to teach everyone about gun safety.

In a lot of cities, the gun ownership rate is maybe 5-10% or less. Seems rather silly to make EVERYONE take a class on gun safety when most kids will grow up in homes without guns.

Goshin said:

What's wrong with teaching Hand to Hand in school? If the little suckers learned to defend themselves, the girls especially, they might be a little safer in a dangerous world.

Boxing used to be part of many school curriculums. Curriculi? :mrgreen:

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That is the parents job to do. More and more things are being taken away from the parent and that is in essence making parenting a lazy position to be in for those that wish to take advantage of it. Too many are expecting the government to teach their children anything and everything.

Instead of costing taxpayers more money why not hold parents accountable for anything that may happen? Little Tommy shoots Little Timmy? Parents are sent to jail for 6 months and must pay funeral/medical costs plus $25,000. Plus charge them for taking care of thier kids while they are in jail.

It is the parents responsibility. Not the taxpayers responsibility.

jamesrage said:

Should firearm use and safety be a required subject in school?


I think it would be a good idea. It should be a required subject just like math, English/grammar,science or some other subject is required. There could be different classes that taught safety(which could be taught with dummy weapons) ,how to aim (which could be taught with dummy weapons) and shooting practice(at first with pellet or paint ball and then maybe something with rubber bullets or other training rounds) and more advance extra curricular classes on reflexive/point fire.

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if they teach kids how to use a "gun" they should be taught how to use a rifle

"This is my rifle, this is my gun"

Kal'Stang said:

That is the parents job to do. More and more things are being taken away from the parent and that is in essence making parenting a lazy position to be in for those that wish to take advantage of it. Too many are expecting the government to teach their children anything and everything.

Instead of costing taxpayers more money why not hold parents accountable for anything that may happen? Little Tommy shoots Little Timmy? Parents are sent to jail for 6 months and must pay funeral/medical costs plus $25,000. Plus charge them for taking care of thier kids while they are in jail.

It is the parents responsibility. Not the taxpayers responsibility.

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Ah, you've pulled up several of my favorite arguments...parent's rights, personal responsibility, and taxes. You do realize that the argument you're making could be turned against the whole public school system, right? It's taxpayer funded but not really under parental control, and half of the stuff they spend money on has nothing to do with real education. Your argument could certainly be turned against all school sports programs that cost taxpayer dollars... shouldn't it be the parent's responsibility?

(shrug) I don't know. If we're going to have a taxpayer-funded public school system it might be nice for the students to learn a few things that are practical in the real world... a little self-defense training would not, imo, hurt anything...along with learning to change a tire, check your oil and balance a checkbook. :mrgreen:

molten_dragon said:

Yes, it should be offered as a class in school, and you shouldn't be allowed to buy a gun unles you've passed.

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This would be my position. Required... certainly the safety aspect, and you cannot buy a gun without the certificate that you passed.

Kandahar said:

Well then I would totally support YOU getting firearm safety training before getting a gun...but you're in the minority in most large cities. Most urbanites don't have guns, and therefore there's not really any reason to make ALL students take a class on it.

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To present the counterargument, I give you this Geek analysis:

In an attempt not to derail Colleen's RSP'er of the next couple of days, here's a place for discussion about gun ownership, gun use, gun suicide, and gun homicide.

It is well-known that the rate of gun ownership in rural areas is higher than gun ownership in urban areas. A recent article by DuRant et al. (2007) in the Journal of Pediatrics showed that the rates were 34.4% of households in rural areas and 19.6% of households in urban areas.

However, when we look in terms of actual number of people who are in contact with a gun, then we see that the raw numbers indicate that many more people in urban areas are in contact with fire arms. Using the census data from 2000 ( U.S. Population Living in Urban vs. Rural Areas - Census 2000 Population Statistics - Census Issues - Planning - HEP - FHWA)

Rural Population : 59,274,456
Urban Population : 225,956,060

Multiplying by their respective percentages we get

Rural x Gun Ownership Rate = (59,274,456) x .344 = 20,390,412
Urban x Gun Ownership Rate = (225,956,060) x .196 = 44,287,397

Assuming equal household sizes, about 2 times the number of people are in contact with guns in urban areas than rural areas.

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CaptainCourtesy said:

This would be my position. Required... certainly the safety aspect, and you cannot buy a gun without the certificate that you passed.

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I wouldn't mind that so much, as I've said, if I didn't suspect that anti-gun elements in gov't might use the precedent to "raise the bar" to the point that no one could pass the class.

Similar methods have been used by states with "discretionary issue" carry permits, to effectively deny permits to anyone who isn't golf buddies with a Kennedy.

Goshin said:

To present the counterargument, I give you this Geek analysis:

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I'm not sure what this proves...other than there are a lot more people in urban areas than there are in rural areas. In absolute terms, of course there are going to be more guns in urban areas since there are more people. But that's like saying that cars are more dangerous than motorcycles because the total number of car fatalities is higher.

The PROPORTIONS are the numbers we should be interested in, as they are a reasonable proxy for the likelihood that an individual lives in a home with a gun. Assuming these numbers are accurate, the average person is almost twice as likely to own a gun if they live in a rural area. Therefore mandatory gun safety classes would be of more use in rural areas.

Jerry said:

After gun safety and cpr are in the curriculum, than I'm open to discussing sex-ed in the public school.

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That's an odd stance. The average person is far more likely to use their genitals than they are to use CPR or a gun.

Why do you place a higher importance of the less frequently used things?

Tucker Case said:

That's an odd stance. The average person is far more likely to use their genitals than they are to use CPR or a gun.

Why do you place a higher importance of the less frequently used things?

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Teen pregnancy kills far fewer people than does accidental firearms discharge or the lack of medical attention.

I might turn the question back on you and ask why you place more importance on the things which kill fewer people

Kandahar said:

If you read his post, you'll see that that isn't his agenda at all. It's to be able to argue more effectively against gun control advocates. I'm highly skeptical of any argument along the lines of "We should implement Policy X so that critics of my agenda will no longer have Argument Y." That's fine if it's merely incidental to some actual benefit from Policy X, but he framed it as the main reason to teach everyone about gun safety.

In a lot of cities, the gun ownership rate is maybe 5-10% or less. Seems rather silly to make EVERYONE take a class on gun safety when most kids will grow up in homes without guns.

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You're speaking to someone who sends money to folks trying to abolish various gun bans in cities.

Taking that in context, while fighting for more guns in the cities I also fight for those guns to be used safely.

My position on the specific topic of gun classes in the school is but a piece of a broader agenda.


***
The statistic you quote, 5-10%, is that legal gun ownership or does that figure include illegal ownership as well? How many children grow up in homes with illegal firearms, or have friends who illegally carry on the street?

Jerry said:

Teen pregnancy kills far fewer people than does accidental firearms discharge or the lack of medical attention.

I might turn the question back on you and ask why you place more importance on the things which kill fewer people

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Are you sure about that? There aren't very many deaths from accidental firearm use. And aren't you anti-abortion? If you consider fetuses to be humans, then the number of deaths from teen pregnancies are several orders of magnitude higher than those from accidental firearm use.

Kandahar said:

Are you sure about that? There aren't very many deaths from accidental firearm use. And aren't you anti-abortion? If you consider fetuses to be humans, then the number of deaths from teen pregnancies are several orders of magnitude higher than those from accidental firearm use.

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First trimester abortions don't count as I don't oppose those :mrgreen:

So does your statistic include illegal firearms or no?

Kandahar said:

I'm not sure what this proves...other than there are a lot more people in urban areas than there are in rural areas. In absolute terms, of course there are going to be more guns in urban areas since there are more people. But that's like saying that cars are more dangerous than motorcycles because the total number of car fatalities is higher.

The PROPORTIONS are the numbers we should be interested in, as they are a reasonable proxy for the likelihood that an individual lives in a home with a gun. Assuming these numbers are accurate, the average person is almost twice as likely to own a gun if they live in a rural area. Therefore mandatory gun safety classes would be of more use in rural areas.

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Not in actual numbers.


Anyway, I don't know why I'm arguing about this because I don't really care. After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that I don't want gun safety, mandatory or elective, taught in public schools. The reason being, "public" schools are actually government schools, and they're under the command of the Beltway more than local school boards or parents. Since we're talking about the government doing it, they'd surely screw it up... like they do almost everything else. So, nevermind.

G.

Goshin said:

Not in actual numbers.


Anyway, I don't know why I'm arguing about this because I don't really care. After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that I don't want gun safety, mandatory or elective, taught in public schools. The reason being, "public" schools are actually government schools, and they're under the command of the Beltway more than local school boards or parents. Since we're talking about the government doing it, they'd surely screw it up... like they do almost everything else. So, nevermind.

G.

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I think you might be right on that.They would probably require someone with a PHD with no firearm experience over someone with real world experience to teach the course.

Jerry said:

Teen pregnancy kills far fewer people than does accidental firearms discharge or the lack of medical attention.

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Let's compare accidental firearms discharge to Maternal mortality for a minute.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf

In 2006 (most recent data I could find), there were 642 accidental firearms deaths, with a rate of 0.2 per 100,000 population

However, Maternal mortality deaths (death caused by childbirth) were numbered at 569. There were a total of 151,963,545 females in the US in 2006 United States - Age and Sex and that translates to a rate of 0.37 per 100,000.

Now, I didn't remove the infertile portion of the female population when I calculated that rate. If we remove all female children under 10 and adult women over 65, we remove 27% of the total population of females getting a total at-risk population of 110,933,387. This creates a rate of 0.5 per 100,000 of the at-risk population (although this number is still skewed as.

Which is approximately 2.5 times higher than the at-risk rates for firearms discharge.

So one could argue that pregnancy is far more dangerous per at-risk capita than accidental firearms discharge.

This does not take into account mortality rates for deadly STD's aquired during teenage years.

In 2006, there were 572 reported cases of HIV infections among children 13-19 http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/adolescents/slides/Adolescents_8.pdf

Compare this to a total of 154 unintentional firearms fatalities for all children under 20 in 2006. http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/facts/firearm-deaths-age-intent.pdf

Couple these data together and it is very clear that teen sex is far more dangerous than unintentional discharges of firearms.

I might turn the question back on you and ask why you place more importance on the things which kill fewer people

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As you can see from the above, I place more importance on the more dangerous thing.

Why do you worry about the less dangerous one?



P.S. I would agree that first aid and CPR training has the highest priority of the three, and it is the only one I feel warrants a mandatory education in schools. So that inclusion is fairly irrelevant to the main point of debate. Also, there are very few people who would have a moral aversion to their children being taught first aid or CPR, whereas the other two are comparable due to the high rates of moral aversion.

So let's not complicate the matter by bringing up red herrings. Let's focus on the apples to apples comparison.

SE102 said:

I'd rather they forced martial arts on students, though. Heheh.

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You know, that makes much more sense. Am always for more physical conditioning for our out of shape citizens. Majority of our countrymen are obese and unable to defend themselves.

Firearm use and safety shouldn't be a required subject. We are having enough problem just teaching the basics to our population.

I wish the NRA would get out of politics and become more prevalent with their youth shooting programs. My own son went through a NRA shooting program early in high school and it was ran very well. Would hope the gun manufacturers would contribute to that fine program as it is preparing future customers for them.

"Firearm use and safety" appears an oxymoronic phrase.

Manc Skipper said:

"Firearm use and safety" appears an oxymoronic phrase.

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Only to those ignorant of firearms.

Manc Skipper said:

"Firearm use and safety" appears an oxymoronic phrase.

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When used as directed in accordance to manufacturer's instructions and the law, firearms stop crime.

Rape, for example, is a crime where lethal force is appropriate and legal, even if penetration hasn't actually occurred yet.

Manc Skipper said:

"Firearm use and safety" appears an oxymoronic phrase.

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Only to people that are ignorant on the subject.

molten_dragon said:

Yes, it should be offered as a class in school, and you shouldn't be allowed to buy a gun unles you've passed.

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This would be an infringement on the right, no different than the government requiring that someone take and pass a class before they can be a reporter, a blogger, a protester, a priest, or a woman wantng an abortion.