The Utah State House has voted overwhelmingly (59-10) to support a bill requiring children to learn about gun safety as early as kindergarten. The Republican-controlled chamber is now sending the measure to the state Senate, despite concerns from anti-Second Amendment groups that say education on the deep-seated American liberty is somehow an unnecessary burden on young children. No, I’m not kidding. They really say that.
The bill passed on Valentine’s Day, proposing mandatory instruction for elementary-age public school students on responding safely when encountering a firearm. The directive would also use age-appropriate videos and a live instructor to demonstrate best gun-handling practices, including safe gun storage, teaching youngsters to prevent avoidable accidents. Instruction would occur on a minimum of three occasions between kindergarten and sixth grade, lessons worth imparting on children, but not a schedule any reasonable person should label intrusive or burdensome.
Republican Representative Rex Shipp, of Cedar City, Utah, sponsored the bill and says he intends to use education to prevent tragedies involving young children, starting with teaching the youngest students to avoid touching an unattended firearm and to alert an adult immediately.
“A lot of times when they don’t have any firearms in their homes or don’t do any hunting and shooting, then these kids are not taught what to do when they come in contact with a firearm,” according to Shipp.
While Utah currently has a statute on the books that allows firearm safety education in schools, teachers, for the most part, have not been integrating those lessons into their curriculum. The new bill will make the instruction mandatory but also contains a provision for those parents who do not want their children to know what to do in these situations to opt their kids out of the learning, leaving those of us more concerned with safety than political posturing to choose more wisely who to let our children hang out with.
If the bill passes the equally Republican-dominated Senate and is signed into law, mandatory firearm safety education would begin in the next school year, similar to Tennessee, which requires annual training in its public schools without ammunition or live firearms but leaves the grade level decision to education officials.
Meanwhile, anti-Second Amendment activists attempt to clamor for credibility by applauding Utah Republicans for pushing gun safety while voting and lobbying against the measure. I wish I made this up, but these people are that morally corrupt. One foolish take comes from Barbara Gentry of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, seemingly unconcerned with preventing the same accidents I’ll bet she’s used to promote anti-Second Amendment rhetoric on more than one occasion.
“Guns and gun safety are the responsibility of the adult gun owner, not school children… We support schools sending home materials to parents outlining the importance of safe storage in keeping our families and schools safe from gun violence,” Gentry said in what I’d like to bestow my logical fallacy of the day award.
Gentry was joined by Jaden Christensen, who volunteers for the Utah chapter of Moms Demand Action, another easily-led automaton who apparently read the memo and decided to parrot the sentiment without concern for whether it was relevant or made sense in the context of the discussion.
“The burden should always be on adults,” said Christensen.
I’ve always said that the agenda is important for these types, not the children. They will stand upon a mountain of tragedy with their hypocrisy and deflection if it means the destruction of our rights and American values. Thankfully, there are those of us who live in the real world, where we understand the lessons of the Founders and the reality of self-preservation while embracing safety and education.
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