Helpful Education

The shootings of late have brought so many ideas for prevention, all of which are useless, of course.

I have an Idea, I believe will help, both in our preparedness for and understanding of such events.

When someone is determined to do harm to others, there is often little that can stop them.

I was raised in a military family; we learned of weapons from a young age; their use, storage, and safety were drilled into my sister and myself from a young age, we learned respect for the weapon, its power, its uses and how to protect ourselves and others, both with and without the weapons.

Guns are so ingrained in our culture, taking them away is not an option; as my grandfather would say “if guns are criminal, then only the criminals will have them”.

I truly believe that considering our culture of weapons, more must be done in our education system to see to it that others have the same education we had, as children about them.

For a long time, I felt that it was a personal family matter, but as the mass shootings continue, I realized that most families are not like my own. Even my sister and her husband do not teach the same things of safety and weapons to their children that she and I were taught.

Weapons are a part of our culture; this should be acknowledged. The addition of self-defense and weapons safety to the primary and secondary curriculum, will be more controversial than sex education, but is just as necessary (if not more so).

Naturally, as with the sex education provided in schools, parental permission must still apply. Even if only a small percentage of the children learn from the programs provided, those that weren’t allowed to attend, will hear of what their classmates learned.

Children will always talk, maybe for once, they could talk of things that may save themselves or others.