12-14-2013, 09:39 PM
I agree to a certain extent, but I think this misses the larger problem though that access to guns is the problem.
My own kids both know how to shoot rifles though neither was interested in it as a hobby, and both have NRA safety certificates from summer camp. We talked a good bit about gun safety when they were growing up but always with the realization that the best way to stay safe is to stay away from them, completely. They lost one grandparent to a handgun.
Guns are really not that difficult to operate, and they are easy to misuse, to say the least. A kid who is prone to suicide isn't going to stop because they had a gun safety class, they will avoid shooting themselves because they don't have access to a gun. Same for the kid who has criminal intent.
What I would prefer to see are very stiff and meaningful penalties for gun owners and/or parents when kids get their hands on guns. Only 20 states have such laws now. And the correlation between lax laws and gunshot deaths of children has been proven conclusively. Stricter laws, fewer deaths.
My own kids both know how to shoot rifles though neither was interested in it as a hobby, and both have NRA safety certificates from summer camp. We talked a good bit about gun safety when they were growing up but always with the realization that the best way to stay safe is to stay away from them, completely. They lost one grandparent to a handgun.
Guns are really not that difficult to operate, and they are easy to misuse, to say the least. A kid who is prone to suicide isn't going to stop because they had a gun safety class, they will avoid shooting themselves because they don't have access to a gun. Same for the kid who has criminal intent.
What I would prefer to see are very stiff and meaningful penalties for gun owners and/or parents when kids get their hands on guns. Only 20 states have such laws now. And the correlation between lax laws and gunshot deaths of children has been proven conclusively. Stricter laws, fewer deaths.