It’s been a few years since the anti-gun lobby tried to rebrand itself as a “gun safety” movement because people respond more positively to that phrase than “gun control”, but I don’t think its working out too well for them, especially when they come out in opposition to teaching kids real gun safety lessons in school. 

New Hampshire Rep. Terry Roy has introduced a measure that would require one single hour of age-appropriate instruction every year for public school students; a modest measure designed to impart the lesson that handling a gun without adult supervision is a no-no. If there’s ever a gun-related issue that both pro-2A and anti-gun forces can agree on it should be this, but Roy’s proposal is a bridge too far for the gun controllers. 

There would be no guns in schools during the lessons, and parents could pull their kids from the class if they objected. Similar bills have recently passed in Arkansas, Tennessee and Utah. Opponents have called Roy’s legislation misguided and dangerous. 

… “The more people look into it and realize I’m not trying to teach a combat class, the more people are saying, ‘You know what? That makes a lot of sense,’” Roy said.

Gabrielle Goldstein disagrees. She told lawmakers last week how scared she was during lock down drills at Portsmouth High School and the trauma of seeing an active shooter at the University of North Carolina her freshman year.

“The root of gun violence in schools isn’t a lack of knowledge,” she told lawmakers. “It’s the choice to cause harm. In training students in firearm safety won’t stop that choice. It won’t prevent trauma. It just brings us one step closer to accepting guns as a part of everyday school life, somewhere guns don’t belong.”

Advocates from several groups testified against Roy’s legislation, including Moms Demand Action, New Futures, and Gun Sense New Hampshire.

There would be no guns in school under Roy’s proposal, which addresses Goldstein’s chief complaint, but that doesn’t matter to her or the gun control activists at Moms Demand Action and other anti-2A organizations. 

Their version of gun safety is “don’t own one”, and they’re well within their rights if they decide not to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. But guns are a part of everyday life for tens of millions of Americans, and like it or not, with well over 300 million of them in circulation, they’re not going anywhere. 

So why don’t these anti-gun activists want kids to learn what to do if they see a gun? Why don’t they want high school students to hear from trauma surgeons about the impact that an accidental (or intentional) shooting can have on a body? Under Roy’s proposal parents who objected could pull their kids out of class for the one hour a year where real gun safety is taught, but hoplophobes like Goldstein don’t want any student exposed to a lesson in gun safety. They want to recruit these kids as foot soldiers in their war on the Second Amendment, and they’re hoping to fill impressionable heads and hearts with fear instead of facts. It’s disgusting, and New Hampshire lawmakers should strike a blow for real gun safety by adopting Roy’s proposal.