More Anti-Firearm Stupidity.

Ever see a fat biathelon champion?

When I was in school we had to get parental permission. There were no freak outs by the parents. No one was kept from participating.

If the school had shown a tad bit of professionalism and communicated with the parents what they wanted to do and why this whole thing would have never happened. Doing otherwise is just begging the parents to overreact and jump to conclusions (which they usually need no help doing).

Yes. The empirical proof comes in studying the satistics of crimes in such places and comparing them.

You'll find that such places really do have higher crime rates than those that deregulate fiearms.

Thank you for your response. But I have a hard to believing that the crime rates in, say, Sweden or Canada are much higher than they are in the United States. Could you please point me to an Internet source that proves that you are right?

If these two countries had the guns and America didn't, America would still have a much higher violent crim/murder rate. We get several armed robberies/murders with knives a month here in the Augusta area.
Anyone disagree with this? Anyone?

Eueopeans/Canadians don't have nearly the amount of lowlife/pyscho/hothead/ghetto-ass/ignorant/born to lose/career criminals we do, and likely never will.

That's kind of sad. I assume your reference is to not only absolute numbers, but also proportion of our population as well, right?

I recommend starting here:

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

I'm not even sure how those two are even remotely similar.

Similar in consequenes. Having sex is somewhat dangerous with all the different kinds of STDs floating around and then there's the thought of catching HIV & AIDs through it, for example.

Remember, then you're having sex with somebody you're haing sex with their partners too.

But it's more likely that a kid will have access to sex first than to a gun.

The biggest issue isn't so much that they used guns in PE as much as not asking parental consent. I don't agree with that, given the danger level of this particular activity.

I think it is good the school offers this, but they still should've asked the parents. My parents could have deferred my sex-ed learning, though they didn't. This is the same thing.

So, advocates of requiring gun safety courses - why?

Isn't that really...anti-Libertarian? You're taking away a parent's right to choose whether or not their child learns how to handle a gun, taking away the right of that child to not have to learn how to handle a gun.

And don't you dare say that lack of knowledge takes away some right or other of yours. 'Cause then, well, easy as lyin' for me to take that down a very anti-Libertarian road.

Now hey, I advocate it being an option. An option. A choice ultimately for parents. One I'd probably choose for my own children. It should not be forced. And it should not be PE.

I'm all for allowing parents to opt out... so long as they face enhanced liability in the event their child fucks up with a gun.

If we're going to have some safety education in schools, we need to be serious about it and include safety situations kids are likely to encounter at some point in their life. As I stated before, we'll teach young children about stranger danger, we'll teach middle schoolers and high schoolers about STDs and CPR just in case, we'll show those films in driver's ed, but we won't teach gun safety because it freaks out some parents?

I'm generally for parental notification at the very least when it comes to cirriculum, but I'm not sure I would go so far as to require permission. The only upside to teaching the kids without parental involvement is it gets the knowledge out there with Suzie's mom screaming about how guns are evil and she doesn't want her precious daughter anywhere near them and guns are bad, mmmmkay. That's a slippery slope to be sure, but in this case parental prejudice may be harmful to the child. Guns are dangerous and need to be handled with care, and telling kids how to handle them properly and that they aren't toys shouldn't be an issue.

This isn't about teaching someone a hobby. I had to take boating safety in school. Do you think all that was about the pro-boating lobby trying to introduce me to their hobby? No. It was about learning about life jackets and fire extinguishers and that green light means you have the right of way.

I can understand people being upset about the hunting aspect of the training, but what most people here are advocating is the gun safety aspect. In this regard, I believe that the sex education/gun safety education is a valid comparison. Guns are out there, and can be a danger if a child comes across one unsupervised, and pretending they don't exist isn't doing a kid any favors.

It's possible that the reason they made this a hunting oriented class is because they didn't want to go for a real accredited, strictly gun safety oriented class, like the Eddie Eagle program, because if the NRA had been in the school teaching the classes, people would have thrown an even bigger fit than they are now, so they went with their state wildlife agency instead.

There are too many examples of the opposite, and way too many other factors involved to make that claim IMHO.

I don't know if this was mentioned but some people are very against hunting. It has nothing to do with guns. Its the killing of animals part.

So I understand some parents reaction.

Never seen a gun just laying around in my life. Don't have gun training and so far haven't needed it.

I have seen naked pussy laying around. And was very glad I got training about that.

Your child has more chance of coming across little Susie with her panties down then an unsupervised gun.

So all these kids finding guns and accidentally shooting themselves or someone else that I hear about in the news are just my imagination?

Are these stories just in your town?

All these kids?? So many that we need to fill this lack of knowledge?

So you think a special class will stop Baby Einstein from picking up a gun and pointing it at his face?

But that doesn't mean your son won't come across a gun lying around. Why wouldn't you want him to know what to do if he does encounter a gun? Why wouldn't you want you daughter to know what a gun is truly capable of doing and know it's something dangerous and not a toy?

The smart kid will not go near it. I don't think the class is gonna help the dummy that wants to run around the house with the gun going Pow, Pow, Pow!!

So it's a numbers thing? If only X number of children are killed per year by being accidentally shot while playing with a gun we won't teach gun safety, but when it that number reaches Y we will? Isn't the life of a child, or anyone, worth teaching them what to do when faced with a gun?

Smart kids won't have unprotected sex. Smart kids won't drink and drive. Smart kids won't smoke. Smart kids won't try drugs. Smart kids won't do any number of things they shouldn't that are dangerous, right?

Why waste time and money on a class if the numbers ARE very low?

The gun owners need to train their own family. You imply that if a kid sees a gun he must touch it or handle it. That he must have training for this situation.

So in your world the possibility of seeing a gun is equal to the possibility of sex, drugs and driving.

I do, but if you don't see this as a problem worth paying any attention to, then I can see your point...but I disagree.

No. In my world kids do things they are told not to. We'll prepare them for sex by giving them sex ed, despite telling them not to have sex until they are adults. We'll give kids information about drugs and what to do if a friend ODs, despite telling them not to do drugs. We'll tell kids to call a cab if they get drunk, despite telling them not to drink in the first place. Simply telling kids not to do a thing isn't enough.

Train my family? Done. But you don't own any guns. How will you train your kids? Simply saying "don't touch" isn't enough since kids often do things they are specifically told not to do.

Oh, I forgot about this...

I can remember a time when people usually didn't use the word "offend" when they really meant, "pissed off". It seems that the PC movement gave the term added sting, but if people keep using throwing it around like they just love to do, it's going to take the sting back out IMHO.