Iowa school districts will teach mandatory gun safety courses

By Emma Campbell

Elm Staff Writer

Students enrolled in seventh- and eighth-grade at schools in the North Butler and Clarksville, Iowa school districts will be required to partake in mandatory hunter safety training courses next year, Radio Iowa reported. The course will be part of the school’s physical education curriculum.

The classes are aimed toward teaching 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,” said North Butler Superintendent Joel Foster. School officials have said that parents can sign a form removing their children from the lessons if they are uncomfortable with the new curriculum.

The number of Americans killed by guns in the past year, whether these deaths were malicious or accidental, is staggering. Nearly 40,000 people died from guns in the United States in 2017 alone — which is the highest number of gun deaths since 1968, as reported by the New York Times based on new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This statistic is frustrating for numerous reasons, but perhaps the ease at which these deaths could have been prevented is the most agonizing. Many gun deaths are due to negligence, which can be avoided with more rigorous safety training and screening processes. The new curriculum introduced by Iowa school districts may be helpful in shrinking this terrifying number.

Parents who elect to opt their children out of the course in firearm safety have perfectly sound reasons for doing so. Introducing gun discussions into the classroom is a disturbing thought. The very notion that public schools feel it is necessary to introduce this curriculum could be a cause for alarm from many parents, for this acclimates their children to the function and, unfortunately, threat that guns pose in the current political climate.

It is important to note that real guns and ammunition will not be used during instruction, which is a responsible decision made by those involved in planning the curriculum. Gathering middle schoolers in a school gymnasium and surrounding them with rifles and targets would hardly be helpful in coaching them on the potential dangers of these weapons. However, reminding students of the devastating accidents, homicides, suicides, and massacres that come from the easy pulling of a trigger can only help bring awareness to the seriousness of this issue.

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