Western Journal – by Grant Atkinson
When most adults think of physical education in elementary and middle school, it conjures up memories of fitness tests or organized dodgeball games.
For fifth- and sixth-grade students in Hot Springs County, Wyoming, the skills being taught are much different.
In a post on its official Facebook page, Hot Springs County School District #1 shared images of students learning proper firearm safety with air rifles.
“Mr. Deromedi’s 5/6th PE classes are working on their marksmanship with air rifles!” the post stated. “All students passed their safety test and have been sharpening their skills.”
The post quickly gained steam on social media. By noon Tuesday EST, it had been shared more than 66,000 times since it was posted on Wednesday. In addition, over 6,000 users commented on the post.
Some commenters espoused typical leftist talking points and compared teaching children proper firearm safety to arming them for future crimes.
“Training the next school shooter young and providing the guns on campus nice,” one Facebook user wrote.
Another user suggested that this training amounted to “literally raising possible school shooters.”
This kind of rhetoric is obviously misguided for multiple reasons. First, the post clearly stated the children were given air rifles, not fully functional firearms.
The suggestion that children were provided with guns that could be used in school shootings was either ignorant or purposely dishonest. In either case, the comment was false.
Second, there is no evidence to suggest training children in proper gun safety will cause them to become unnecessarily violent.
In fact, there is a strong argument to be made that children who learn both the power of a firearm and the discipline it takes to handle one are more likely to be responsible, law-abiding gun owners in the future.
In many cases, gun-related deaths result from someone wielding a gun without knowledge of firearm safety.
A recent example of this appears to be the tragic, fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin on a movie set in New Mexico. Baldwin was an outspoken critic of guns, and he violated many basic rules of firearm safety leading up to the accident.
If Baldwin had learned these important principles at a young age, the situation may have been different.
Many Facebook users understood this fact and praised the school district on Facebook for teaching students important lessons in gun safety.
“Thankful that the school district sees this as important!” one commenter wrote. “Gun safety and training is excellent! Keep up the good work!”
Other users commented that they wished this type of training had been offered in their schools when they were younger.
Teaching important safety lessons to children at a young age is very important, and this school district understands that. By instilling these values into children early, the district might even be preventing disaster in the future.
Funny that, we used to take our guns to school, had firearms safety training and rifle teams. Amazingly, nobody shot up the place.
C.M.P.
I was a member when I was a kid
took my BB gun to school
set up in the Gym and had a blast
won trophy’s , had contests with other districts ..shame not much of this anymore , wish i could have gotten my daughter involved .. so .. i did it myself with her at 6YO and to this day she’s a dam good shot , still to this day I quiz my kids on gun safety and I hope she passes it on to her daughter ..if not ..maybe gramps will step in.
for all the negative comments about this ..Fck you !
I did this for many many years as a kid , and never once thought about harming anyone with a gun