Editorial: Time to start teaching gun safety in schools

September 7, 2004
St. Paul Pioneer Press

by Mark Yost

As the rest of Minnesota's kids head back to school today, they'll participate in a wide-ranging curriculum that will readily teach them how to swim, how to drive, how to safely handle potent chemicals, how to balance their checkbook, even how to conjugate verbs in a dead language. What it won't teach them is what to do if they ever come across a gun.

In a culture obsessed with safety, this is a gaping hole in our public school curriculum. For while we can debate whether guns are good or bad until we're blue in the face, the undeniable fact is that guns are out there.

The exact numbers are hard to come by. Some estimates put gun ownership in Minnesota just shy of the national average of about 40 percent of households. Or you can take the estimated number of guns in circulation in the United States — about 200 million — and divide by 50 states and figure that there are roughly 4 million guns in Minnesota.

More exact statistics in the wake of the new concealed-carry law make it clear that gun safety isn't just a concern in rural areas. According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, about 45 percent of all permits were issued in the metro area. There were 15,677 permits issued statewide from May 28 to Dec. 31, 2003; 7,132 of them were issued in five counties around the metro area.

I know the turnoff for some readers is that we're talking about guns, which have been unduly demonized in our culture. But think about the other dangers children face. Should schools only teach kids who have a pool or live by a lake how to swim? Should kids who are too young to drive not be taught about the dangers of crossing the street? And while abduction is statistically unlikely, don't we still teach our kids about "strangers"? Then why shouldn't our schools teach kids what to do if they happen upon a gun?

One hurdle to implementing objective gun safety programs seems to be the fact that the single largest gun safety educator in the United States is the National Rifle Association. Indeed, the organization the media love to hate provides the curriculum for the majority of hunter safety courses around the country. It also offers a K-12 curriculum called the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program.

The New York Times and others have deemed Eddie Eagle akin to Joe Camel, nothing more than a marketing tool to lure young minds into the "gun culture." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Eddie Eagle is a highly respected program that has absolutely nothing to do with shooting sports or the Second Amendment. It teaches kids four simple steps should they find a gun: Stop. Don't touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.

That's it. The program shouldn't be controversial. In fact, Ohio recently became the first state to appropriate funds specifically for schools to teach Eddie Eagle. The Legislature there appropriated $40,000 to teach gun-accident prevention in pre-K through third grade. The program is expected to reach 130,000 Ohio schoolchildren.

The National Safety Council, the Justice Department, the National Sheriffs' Association and 24 state governors have praised Eddie Eagle. To date, 22,000 people have been trained to teach Eddie Eagle in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Minnesota tried to join the club in 1995. State Sen. Pat Pariseau, R-Farmington, asked the Department of Natural Resources to evaluate gun-safety programs.

"The only program to meet the requirements of the legislative charge was the Eddie Eagle Program," according to the DNR report. "The program is value-neutral concerning firearms ownership. It provides safety information at a variety of age levels so it is the most versatile of the programs examined. It reaches the appropriate age group of youngsters in a manner that they can readily accept without advocating any position."

Pariseau tried to implement a pilot program following the study, one in outstate Minnesota and one in the metro area.

"We couldn't get any metro schools to participate," she said.

Currently, neither the St. Paul nor the Minneapolis public schools teach gun safety as part of their K-12 curriculum. St. Paul teaches the standard hunter safety course as part of its community education program, but even those programs are coming under fire.

Fortunately, despite resistance to these common-sense classes, some Minnesota kids are being taught what to do if they find a gun. According to the NRA, they've shipped Eddie Eagle materials to 178 schools in Minnesota since the program began in 1988; 75 schools have requested materials in the past year. The organization also has shipped Eddie Eagle materials to 75 Minnesota police departments since 1988; eight in the past year.

Pariseau plans to renew her efforts to add gun safety to the public schools curriculum. It's not only long overdue, but simple common sense — especially if you buy into the skewed statistics that are often cited by anti-gun groups. If guns are really as menacing as they claim, shouldn't we be telling our kids about them?

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NOTE: Pro-gun advocates are ALWAYS the leaders in teaching gun safety. On the other hand, a quick visit to the (anti-gun) Americans for Gun Safety website will let the visitor know that they aren't the least bit concerned for firearms safety. There is no information on the website about the proper handling of firearms, safety practices on the range, or anything of the kind.

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