Wayne LaConMan also touted the nra's Eddie Eagle Program, which (allegedly) teaches children what to do if they see an unattended gun - Stop, Don't Touch, Leave the Room, Tell an Adult - a quick 4 step process for children which makes the nra feel all warm & cuddly inside that they're protecting children both from guns & with guns.
HOWEVER, it's just another chapter in the NRA's 2nd Amendment Mythology Bible:
wiki: The Eddie Eagle Gun Safety Program, administered by the (NRA), is geared towards younger children from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade, and teaches kids that real guns are not toys by emphasizing a "just say no" approach. The Eddie Eagle program is based on training children in a four-step action to take when they see a firearm: (1) Stop! (2) Don't touch! (3) Leave the area. (4) Go tell an adult.
Materials, such as coloring books and posters, back the lessons up and provide the repetition necessary in any child-education program.
The ineffectiveness of the "just say no" approach promoted by the NRA's Eddie the Eagle program was highlighted in an investigative piece by ABC's Diane Sawyer in 1999. Sawyer's piece was based on academic studies conducted by Dr. Marjorie Hardy..
.. Dr. Hardy's study tracked the behavior of elementary age schoolchildren who spent a day learning the Eddie the Eagle four-step action plan from a uniformed police officer. The children were then placed into a playroom which contained a hidden gun. When the children found the gun, they did not run away from the gun, but rather, they inevitably played with it, pulled the trigger while looking into the barrel, or aimed the gun at a playmate and pulled the trigger. --- {not all of them though, some avoided the guns}
The study concluded that children's natural curiosity was far more powerful than the parental admonition to "Just say no".
[link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States|
Diane SAWYER:.. we decided to set up an experiment of our own. We went to this day-care center in Allentown {Pa} and rigged a playroom with 3 hidden cameras. We filled the play area with all kinds of toys and with something else, 3 handguns, a .38, a .22, a .357 Magnum, all of them real but unloaded and disabled. We placed them at varying times on a table, in a small purse and in a box of toys. Dr. Hardy said young kids don't make a distinction between a gun they'd find in an adult closet or shelf and one they'd find in a toy box.
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