Students in the Show-Me State will soon learn about gun safety at the young age of 6. Gov. Jay Nixon (D) signed into law Friday a bill that encourages Missouri schools to teach first graders gun safety from a course approved by the National Rifle Association.
According to The Associated Press, the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program, which is already taught to about 1 million children across the country each year, will teach children what to do if they see a gun: “STOP! Don’t touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult.”
“It’s teaching a great safety message to children that could possibly save their life” Eric Lipp, the NRA’s national manager of community outreach, told the AP.
In addition to encouraging the NRA-sponsored course, the legislation, which was filed the day before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, also requires school staff to take part in an “active shooter and intruder” drill led by law enforcement officers, and transfers the responsibility of issuing concealed carry permits from driver’s license clerks to local sheriffs.
Many school and administrator groups remained neutral on the new law due to its optional nature, but others were not as comfortable with the program having a greater chance of becoming part of the school’s curriculum.
“We have too many things to teach our first-graders, second-graders… to be spending time teaching about gun safety,” Jan Relf, a teacher at a Missouri school, told KCTV5. “That’s something that parents need to deal with.”
Others felt that the course may not be age appropriate, arguing children should be old enough to know what a gun is and what it can do.
The course is described on the NRA’s website as not trying to teach “whether guns are good or bad, but rather to promote the protection and safety of children.” It adds that “the program makes no value judgments about firearms, and no firearms are ever used in the program.”
Nixon, who was prompted to sign the bill into law after it passed through the Republican-held legislature, refused to say whether he supported the NRA-sponsored course.
According to the AP, Nixon believes that “allowing the local school districts to make those choices is appropriate.”
Measures to encourage the use of the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program are not uncommon, however. According to NRA, more than 20 states have passed similar measures, but Missouri’s choice to endorse the program through state laws is less popular, only having been done in a handful of states including North Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
