Again, I would call for universal and compulsory training in the care, feeding, use and responsibility with handling of rifles, shotguns, and pistols, by members of both genders (and there are still only two). This training should be well under way by the time the youths enter middle school.
The respect for and applicable use of side arms is even more important than sex education, and for much the same reason. What you don’t know CAN hurt you, and in ways that go way beyond merely the first effects.
Near-universal familiarity with and availability of the broad range of firearms then in existence was one of the contributing factors in the ability of American youth to go into battle against the Japanese and German war machines in the Second World War, and emerge victorious. Today, we have lost that advantage, with the superstitious attitude that has grown up around personal defense of all kinds. In this fear of making even the least move toward self-defense, the victim provides a most lop-sided advantage to the aggressor.
That kind of timidity never ends well.
I’m game with it being an optional after-school thing, but no, it shouldn’t be mandatory. Then the government will be saying “Well if we can require students learn to use firearms, then can we not also require them to use them the way we think they should be used?”
Seeing as how I handled weedwhackers, law mowers, knives, and other dangerous tools, guns included, before I even drove a car, that’s easily not a bad idea.
Sounds like a good idea.