Iowa Schools Take A Step In The Right Direction With Gun Safety Classes Instead Of Fearmongering

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With school shootings all over the mainstream media news, many people feel like the number of shootings are decreasing even though statistics say that they aren’t. Consequently, many school systems are buying into the fearmongering and hysteria and putting even more rigid gun control policies into place.

But school systems in one state are taking a very different approach to guns as noted by WTHR.com staff:

Students in two Iowa school districts will be learning about guns in their gym class starting next year.

Radio Iowa reports 7th and 8th grade students in the North Butler and Clarksville districts will take part in a mandatory hunter safety course starting in the spring. The class will be tought by the Butler County Conservation Board.

High school students have the option of taking a voluntary class, which will not include operable firearms or live ammunition.

North Butler Superintendent Joel Foster said the classes are aimed at teaching the students “how to use weapons responsibly, how to respect them, understand it’s not a video game and those sort of things, that maybe we’ll cut down on our chances of having a severe incident.”

He said that while not every student will go hunting, the class will hopefully teach lessons students can keep with them in unexpected situations.

“If my 12-year-old girl is out babysitting a 3-year-old and the 3-year-old walks out of mom and dad’s bedroom with a handgun or a shotgun, she needs to know how to handle that,” Foster said.

Parents can sign a form to opt their child out of the class.

I don’t know about you, but I think that this is, at the very least, a step in the right direction. If these kids get some familiarity with firearms then they will both be safer with them and also less likely to be manipulated by the fear-based “news” reporting of the mainstream media about guns. And those are both good things.

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17 COMMENTS

  1. How many parents or even school districts know about the NRA’s Eddie Eagle Gun Safety program? It has been available to everyone for 30 years. It is for students in pre-school/kindergarten thru 4th grade. It uses no firearms or ammunition in the presentation but glorifies the message within that is a child finds a gun in their presence to ” STOP, DON’T TOUCH, RUN AWAY AND TELL AN ADULT”!
    That’s is a message that every child should be taught because even a helicopter parent isn’t with their child 24/7.
    All materials for instructor including handout for students is FREE! Always has been free for 30 years.
    Most public schools do not allow this training in the classroom, but millions of kids have been instructed.

  2. That is grate. That what should happen . Instead of taking guns away from Law abiding citizens. Taking guns from us will not get them out of the hands of criminals

  3. To get right to the bottom of these school shootings we have to go back several decades. Back to when the Christian conservative right was asleep. Back to when a very few atheists forced GOD to be removed from schools, government, the legal system, and even the very families. As soon as GOD was removed Satan stepped in and took over. Our schools started a rapid decline to the horrible un-education systems they are today with Satan’s liberal left in charge. How can one expect anything intelligent to come from this system? Where, as GOD teaches, our leaders have the minds of children. The only way we will get back to when there were NO school shootings is to put GOD back into our schools, our legal system, our courts, our churches, our government (elect good Christan men to all elected offices. Replace all the liberal judges with Christian judges etc.), our financial system (get the Federal reserve out). But until that happens. Get rid of ALL gun free zones. Remove ALL restrictions from the law abiding citizens. Allow teachers, custodians, and groundskeepers to be trained and armed.

  4. While I agree the Eddie Eagle program is an excellent program and should be taught in every school in the United States, I also firmly believe that a firearms saftey coarse needs to be taught too. By the age of 12 we should be teaching children gun safety.

    • Good Idea But it should have started at Home ,After the age of Three or 4 years of age at 6 my Dad would hand me the 22 rifle bolt action and about 5 or 6 bullets ,and send me down the shelter belt to get as many rabbits or pheasant s for our meal that night.

      • That is how I as thought and how I taught my daughters . There 12th birthday present was a bolt single shot 22 rifle , We would shoot in the yard several times a week , I stressed safety and marksmanship. Now 20 years after a divorcee my grand kids are shielded from any thing to do with guns . If anyone can figure out what the hell is going on pleas let me know . Defenders of the second amendment and firearms rights are a dying breed

    • Going disagree as to a finite age as to when to teach children about firearms. Start at the earliest age when they can communicate and comprehend.
      As Parents we have an obligation to teach our children all that we can. We must make them better than we are!! Children drown in swimming pools, so we teach them to swim. Children die in auto accidents, so we teach them to drive intelligently and defensively. Children get accidentally shot so we teach children about how firearms function and how to check that the weapon is unloaded and how to handle weapons safely. Children get pregnant, teach them about birth control and responsible parenting, basic economics of what it costs to raise a child. Teach them about things and teach them that there are consequences for bad decisions.

  5. Finally someone trying to educate to correct problems instead of just making more laws. I am a firm believer that we need to stop legislation ( we do not need more laws) and educate to fix the problems. We have brains, let’s use them. Educate not Legislate!!!

  6. In the 70’s I became certified as an instructor for the FL Game & Fresh Water Fish Commission’s “Hunter & Firearm Safety” program. This was shortly after the Game Commission had begun this as a mandatory requirement for anyone under a specific age to be eligible to purchase a hunting license. Myself and several buddy’s had already been “grandfathered’ in, and we weren’t required to take the course, but we all decided to complete the program anyway. We felt we could learn something we might not know. It was an excellent and fairly extensive program with a “field day” for graduation back then. Having my Dad’s old Marlin rifle plus a few firearms of my own in my Mom’s home, I felt it necessary to take my baby sister through the program. Being only 10 years old (the youngest age permitted at the time) and a girl, the head of the FL Game Commission flew down from Tallahassee, in a helicopter, on graduation day to meet her and do a photo op. Several recent years ago, at an event in TN, I met a retired FL Game Commission officer who exclaimed “that’s your sister” as he had seen a picture of her and the head of the Game Commission hanging on the wall of the commission’s headquarters. These type of programs, including the NRA’s Eddie Eagle, should be required in all schools!

  7. To Navy PO2, The main reason schools reject these programs is that the people in charge cannot accept truth. They have been so liberalized, the truth is unknown to them. Too much kool-aid, brain washed.

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