Gun and Knife Show Information

Virtual Gun Show

DACA's Mission Statement

Club Officers

Club Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Useful Links

DACA's Book Store

Club Resources

Home

Beyond Eddie Eagle

By Michael Janofsky , New York Times News Service as published by the Texas Rifle Association.

NEW FREEDOM, Pa. Friday's lesson was foxes, the difference between reds and whites, in the sixth-grade wildlife appreciation class at New Freedom Christian High School.

But this was also one of the afternoons that a wildlife conservation officer was visiting, so it was a good chance to talk about a deadly Thanksgiving Day accident that happened nearby. A man was killed when a relative lowered a shotgun by rope from a tree stand at the end of a hunting trip, and the gun went off.

Police said the relative had drawn the rope through the trigger guard, causing three shots to fire. One hit the man, Brian Sisolak, 41, of Peabody, Mass., in the head, killing him instantly.

Standing in front of the room with two of the class's 10 pupils and an unloaded 12-gauge shotgun, Louis C. Fortman, a conservation officer from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, asked how the accident could have been avoided.

For this class, it was an easy question, and eager hands flew up. Everybody knew that the shotgun should have been unloaded before lowering and that the rope should not have been drawn through the trigger guard.

If the answers seemed obvious, perhaps less so was the setting in which they came. Because of his own interest in the outdoors and hunting, Thomas Getz, the principal of the K-12 school, has been teaching a wildlife appreciation course to sixth-graders for 20 years. Each pupil must pass the course to proceed to the seventh grade. Mr. Fortman drops in several times a year to help.

Federal education officials as well as advocates and opponents of gun use and ownership say they know of no other school in which children so young are taught familiarity with guns. More commonly, they say, youngsters learn about guns in Scout troops, private gun clubs or high school courses such as junior ROTC.

"We don't get much involved in private schools, but I haven't heard about anything like this," said Bill Modzeleski, director of the Safe and Drug Free School Program at the U.S. Education Department.

Nor could two of the nation's most ardent proponents of gun ownership, the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, provide the name of another school that offers children who are 10 to 12 years old a hands on course about guns.

But is it such a good idea? This is an era, after all, when many schools, especially those in urban areas, are taking extreme precautions to keep guns and other weapons out of the hands of children. In the District of Columbia, students must pass through metal detectors and magnetic wands to enter each of the city's 21 public high schools.

And shootings such as those last week in rural West Paducah, Ky., where a 14-year-old high school student is accused of killing three girls and injuring five other students, may be prompting other communities to consider weapons measures.

Groups that oppose easing access to guns, such as the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, have long criticized the NRA and the shooting sports foundation for programs that the center says make guns attractive to young people. A favorite target is the cartoon figure Eddie Eagle, which the rifle association has used for years to teach children about guns.

The Violence Policy Center has also attacked the foundation for a series of videos circulated to schools that the center says are designed to promote hunting.

Chris Chaffin, a spokesman for the foundation, based in Newtown, Conn, acknowledged that his organization, which represents gun manufacturers, distributors and retailers, has sent out 103,000 copies of the videos to public and private schools.

"But they are not just about hunting," Mr. Chaffin said. "They also have a lot of information about wildlife management and the role sportsmen play in conservation."

At the New Christian school, Mr. Getz typically spends two weeks in September teaching the sixth-graders about gun use and safety. He often brings his own guns to class, but never ammunition. The children do not fire guns as part of the course.

"The majority of these kids are not hunters," Mr. Getz said of this year's class, and a show of hands proved it. Only three children said they would like to join Pennsylvania's 2-million hunters. Yet all agreed that learning about guns at their age was prudent and proper.

"Its really bad that a young teenager would do something like that," a 12-year-old girl said, referring to the shooting in West Paducah. "It's better to learn now than be sorry when you get older."

A 12-year-old boy said: "This way, if you have a little brother or sister and they find a gun in the attic, you can tell them to put it away, and you can tell your parents."

Mr. Fortman said that the earlier children are taught to respect guns, the less inclined they might be to use them improperly