A Good Kind of School Shooting

By Jim Irvine

Representative Ron Hood (R-91) of Ashville has introduced HB460. This legislation allows schools to “offer a course in firearm safety and marksmanship.” The course would be taught by a certified instructor, covering a list of required topics, and any additional criteria established by the school district. Students who complete the course would receive a certificate of accomplishment.

Schools teaching kids about safety is nothing new, but like the NRA’s Eddie Eagle GunSafe®
program, this is optional, could save lives, and is likely to be shunned by the school boards and media. Facts don’t seem to matter, to those who hate guns.

A similar law became effective in Arizona last April. The biggest difference being that Arizona’s law is mandatory, Ohio’s would be optional.

Click on read more for outlandish media comments, and the actual text of the bill.

In a Hillsboro Times-Gazette article, Rory Ryan absurdly ridicules this bill and its sponsor. It’s interesting to note that this is a product of the Brown Publishing Company, who has taken an extreme anti-gun stance.

How does Rory sum up the bill?

To borrow a line from my pal Charlie Brown, Good Grief.

Ohio already has a dysfunctional state government and too many dysfunctional schools run by said dysfunctional state government. Do we really want public schools to add firearms training to the curriculum?

Shoot, er heck, half of our educators are scared to enter certain classrooms as it is. How do they feel about adding courses in marksmanship? That’s a good question.

So, because he doesn’t like other laws, instructors suddenly become “dysfunctional” because they are teaching a kid a course associated with a school instead of 4H, Boy Scouts, a professional business, or any of the other places kids can learn about firearm safety. With that line of thinking, I have to admit, Rory knows “dysfunctional.”

His accusation that teachers should fear their students because of a course in proper use of a firearm is reprehensible.

One might think Rory would list the Arizona teachers who have been shot by their students. But of course, like so many “the sky is falling” comments in the media, it didn’t happen there, and it won’t happen here.

Again from the article:

Let’s get one thing straight: Not even a Republican lawmaker in a Republican Ohio General Assembly has any hope of getting this proposed change to state law passed.

If Gov. Taft were to sign such a bill, the writers for Jay Leno and David Letterman would have more Ohio/Columbine references than Bill Ruger could shake a .44 magnum Blackhawk at.

Maybe Rory is unaware that Arizona already passed such a law. It passed by a three-to-one margin in the House, and unanimously in the Senate. The law seems to work fine there, but just like concealed carry, success in other states will not be considered in Ohio. The success comes as no surprise to all those who were on their high school shooting team, once as common as football teams in our country. There is of course, one very important distinction; more kids die competing in football than competing with firearms every year.

Pupils in a DARE course, are not more likely to become drug dealers. Teaching children to swim will not cause them to drown. Teaching kids fire safety, does not turn them into arsonists. And, teaching kids firearm safety, will not make them murderers. In fact, it just might save their life. And if we could save just one child, wouldn’t that be worth it?

To read the bill in it’s entirety, (one page) click here.