Wisconsin Schools Could Offer Gun Safety Class Under Proposed Bill

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Wisconsin Schools Could Offer Gun Safety Class Under Proposed Bill
The curriculum would teach kids how to handle guns safely. (Photo: NSSF)

A new bill recently introduced in the Wisconsin state legislature would allow high schools to offer a firearm safety course to its students.

Sponsored by Republican Representative Treig E. Pronschinske, Assembly Bill 843 would require the state superintendent to develop a course that teaches students about how to handle, load, unload, carry, and transport firearms.

School boards could decide not to offer the course, but they would be required to pass a resolution making that election. The course would be offered as an elective.

“Critics of the bill have said that we should not educate kids on firearms because it could be dangerous,” Pronschinske said. “This is ridiculous. We educate youth on drugs and sex. We certainly don’t want kids to try heroin or to have unintended pregnancies. Education is key to safety and is almost in every aspect of life.”

The bill is similar to another piece of legislation in Wisconsin proposed but never passed in 2017. That bill explicitly prohibited live ammunition but did not include an opt-our provision.

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Critics of the bill framed it as unnecessary.

“The next thing I’m going to hear is that we have to offer farm safety and have tractors be driven around in a course at school to make sure farmers are safe,” said Democratic Rep. Dave Considine.

“I just can’t imagine how an entire semester is spent doing this for credit. It just seems kind of ridiculous to me,” added Democratic Rep. Sondy Pope.

The bill does not offer many details about the curriculum, but it does require that instructors “demonstrate proof of training in firearm safety.” Pronschinske said at a hearing on Wednesday that the class would use replica guns, not real guns.

“Educating our youth in the safe handling, storage, use of firearms, and historic right to bear arms is necessary for the cultivation of the proper culture and respect for firearms,” Wisconsin Gun Owners said in a statement.

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The bill is co-sponsored in the Assembly by Reps. Allen, Armstrong, Behnke, Brandtjen, Edming, Krug, Kuglitsch and Tittl. It is co-sponsored in the Senate by Senators Jacque and Nass.

This idea isn’t new. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, firearms safety courses used to be routinely taught in public schools, and several right-leaning states have considered reviving these courses.

Utah adopted legislation in 2016 offering $75,000 to schools that offered a gun safety course, and Missouri passed a bill in 2013 that introduced gun safety concepts to grade-schoolers.

North Carolina and Idaho have also considered the idea in recent years.

Wisconsin’s latest bill could pass the Republican-controlled legislature but stands very little chance of being signed by Democratic governor Tony Evers.

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  • BR January 21, 2022, 12:36 pm

    I have had this discussion a few different times so let me distill it down. Firearms are out there, 10’s of millions of them, at some point in your child’s life they WILL come into contact with one. Deny the fact all you want but at the end of the day wouldn’t it be better if your child and their friends, knew how to handle one properly? Wouldn’t that make the situation SAFER for everyone?

  • Gutsy January 21, 2022, 11:14 am

    I agree with teaching kids about firearm safety but i think this bill is starting that education too late. It should be taught in 5th or 6th grade. I think that it would help reduce the number of accidental shootings by children who have no understanding of firearms. Even earlier they should be teaching about not touching firearms. What to do if they find one. What to do if a friend or sibling finds one. I have to say that the comparison of teaching firearm safety with farm safety and driving tractors is one of the most absurd things I have heard, but it is from a democrat.

  • Michael Schmidt January 21, 2022, 8:41 am

    Nice to see my state in the news for something GOOD and intelligent. Disappointing, though not surprising, that libs try to equate gun ownership with farm ownership—of course everyone in both categories is antiquated and unimportant. So hopefully everyone in both will have the good sense to vote that twit and the governor out of office.

  • Roger D January 21, 2022, 6:19 am

    This should be taught around 5th or 6th grade. Growing up the local police had an NRA safety and shooting program for children ages 8 to 12. One half hour a week 10 weeks in the summer.

  • Ro January 20, 2022, 11:46 am

    good luck….why don’t we have state conservation departments teaching hunter safety courses (i.e. big part is gun safety) in schools

    but…then again…schools use to teach drivers ed and look at where that is now

    no one wants to put their money where their mouth is…..

    easier for anti-gunners to produce sound bites than sound policy

  • Jimmy Dyke January 20, 2022, 5:45 am

    Finally. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, but I remember seeing pictures of kids in the 40s and 50s having a class on gun safety and shooting at the range. I wish we could bring that back. Teach kids that a gun is a device that can be used for hunting and target practice, and how to safely be around them.

    • Philip January 21, 2022, 12:41 pm

      Correct Jimmy, Firearm safety was a given for about everyone from walking talking age to adulthood up thru the 60s in rural America. At least in the Missouri Ozark foothills. My first firearm at age 9, my beloved Marlin 39a at 12th birthday. In between went solo daily with Remington pump 22 rodent exterminating using rat shot with the blessing of the feed store owner. He paid for my ammo while I got better and better at stopping running rats. Shot Expert at initial military qualification with carbine and M1 Garand 1952.

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