If we're going to have public education, we need to use it wisely. While a lot of people think we should indoctrinate children into believing the approved narrative, that's hardly using it wisely.
Giving kids tools they can use for the rest of their lives is far better.
No, schools don't do a really good job of that in the least. They didn't when I was in school, and nothing at all has changed since then. The same is true in Europe, of course.
One tool I've long advocated for including in schools is gun safety education. Yes, even in places with strict gun control laws. Why? Because when parents aren't familiar with guns, they can't teach the kids, and simple safety education is useful for everyone, even if you never touch a firearm.
Why? Because bad people tend not to be very careful with where they put their guns, as was illustrated in the UK recently.
A young boy was shot in the head after finding a pistol in the woods he and a friend mistook for a BB gun - but miraculously escaped without serious injuries.
The schoolboy, 11, walked away with nothing more than a graze to the head after he and another boy discovered the deadly weapon in a wooded area near Tickleford Drive in Weston, Southampton, on April 7. Parts of a nature reserve in the area, Westwood Nature Reserve, have remained cordoned off for days, and police remain at the scene today.
Hampshire Constabulary confirmed as investigators continue to comb the area that the pair had brought the gun home, believing it was a BB pistol - play guns that shoot pellets instead of bullets - before accidentally firing it once.
Now, the kid is lucky he just got a graze. This whole thing could have gone sideways really fast.
BB guns are also restricted in the UK. Not as much as actual firearms, though, but they're restricted and must be two-tone to differentiate them from real firearms. Unless, that is, it's an airsoft gun, and the buyer is part of an approved organization.
So it's not typical for even BB guns to be just lying around for some random tween to pick up and point at his head, but it's more likely in the kids' eyes that it would be one of those than a real firearm.
Still, the rules for any gun--even an air gun--are the same. While airsoft guns are routinely pointed at people in the course of a milsim game, you should still never point them at yourself, and you shouldn't point them at someone else unless you intend to shoot them.
The problem is that while gun safety knowledge is lower in the US than it used to be, it's downright nonexistent in much of the UK.
Look, I get that some people will see my desire to have gun safety education in schools as just my own attempt at indoctrination, but that's not really true. I mean, I wouldn't cry if it were, if I'm being honest, but I really want it to be about legitimate safety so kids know not to do stupid things. Not every kid will take the lesson to heart, unfortunately, but it's got to be better than just sitting around and praying that everyone else does everything right so it won't be relevant.
That's idiocy.
This was the UK, which has some incredibly strict gun laws. None of them stopped this near tragedy from happening. God is what stopped this from being worse, and while I put my faith in him in all things, I also believe that the Lord helps those who help themselves.
Teach kids better. Put basic safety in schools.
If we're going to have public education, why not give some of these kids knowledge they can actually use?
