Reply #139: I think better gun safety education is needed

[slackmaster]

My stepfather, among other things in a Navy career that spanned both ends of World War II, served as a rifle instructor in Basic Training. He was an expert marksman who first became familiar with firearms while hunting for food as a young child.

He began teaching me gun safety at age 10. My brother was six at the time. Besides the basics of safe gun handling, cleaning storage, etc., he demonstrated the power of the weapons, mainly a .22 rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun. I was very clear about what happens when a projectile hits various kinds of materials, long before I was old enough to keep a gun of my own.

Neither my brother nor I have ever had an accident with a firearm. We both have the rules so thoroughly drilled into us that we find ourselves avoiding "sweeping" people when handling objects like mops and brooms. We are very clear on the power and danger of weapons of all kinds. (He's a Navy warship commander now.)

A problem I see getting worse is that as an ever-smaller portion of the adult population has any real-world training with firearms, fewer and fewer parents are competent to teach basic gun safety to their children. I've made myself a gun safety evangelist, and have taught about 100 people the basics.

I favor gun safety training in public schools. If we can teach kids about the dangers of drugs, sex, driving, rattlesnakes, etc., why not also treat guns as a potential environmental hazard that they need to know how to handle safely? I'm not talking about real guns in classrooms here, just inert ones that can be used to demonstrate and practice safe unloading procedures. Add to that videos or films depicting what happens when a bullet hits something, and some preaching about moral responsibility of weapons ownership, maybe from uniformed police officers to add some perceived authority.

ETA I doubt very much that ignorance of terminal ballistics contributed to the tragic murder under discussion here. The shooter knew what he was doing.