---
title: "One State Just Killed A Plan To Offer Kids Gun-Safety Classes In Schools"
date: "2017-03-11"
modified: "2017-03-11"
authors:
  - name: "Adam Weinstein"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/adamweinstein.md"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/state-killed-kids-gun-safety-classes-bill/"
categories:
  - "News"
---

# One State Just Killed A Plan To Offer Kids Gun-Safety Classes In Schools

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/03/19039142-1.png>)

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday joined Democrats in Idaho — *Idaho!* — to kill legislation that would have permitted public schools to hold elective gun-safety courses for the state’s secondary students. And their reasoning doesn’t seem to make much sense.

The proposal, [advanced by Republican Rep. Ronald Nate](<https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/IDLEG/bulletins/18a3d85#.WLc3keteIFA.facebook>), would have encouraged local school board trustees to design a firearms safety course — without live ammunition — in consultation with weapons experts.

“The trustees may adopt an elective course of instruction developed by the department of fish and game, a law enforcement agency or a firearms association as its firearms safety education course,” the [extremely short bill](<https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2017/legislation/H0240.pdf>) stated.

Related: Take A Stand For Women: Ban Pink Guns »

But members of the state House’s education committee from both sides of the aisle thought the plan was a little *too* simple. Sally Toone, a House Democrat and former schoolteacher, [worried that the bill didn’t have a plan to develop a course curriculum](<https://magicvalley.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/house-ed-panel-kills-gun-classes-in-schools-bill/article_b37a7c3f-2253-5c96-a298-8e38c510b034.html>) that met Idaho’s high-school standards, where electives last 60 hours. Admittedly, that’s a long time to talk about firearms safety; a typical course to get a grownup concealed weapons permit in Idaho [lasts three hours](<https://adasheriff.org/Services/Concealed-Weapons-Permits>). To make such a course work in schools, Toone [told the committee](<https://magicvalley.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/house-ed-panel-kills-gun-classes-in-schools-bill/article_b37a7c3f-2253-5c96-a298-8e38c510b034.html>), “it’s going to take time and money from somebody’s budget.”

On the other hand, organizations like the NRA have long offered schools a gun-safety curriculum in a box under its decades-old “[Eddie Eagle](<https://eddieeagle.nra.org/>)” program.

But legislators worried that introducing those programs into public schools — besides putting educators in league with [the not-always levelheaded gun lobby](<https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-nra-was-waging-war-on-facts-way-before-the-fake-news-boom>) — would also steal clientele from local firearms instructors and gunshop courses. “What will you tell them on why some of their business is going away?” Toone asked Nate in a committee discussion.

Whatever their reasons, half a dozen Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to kill the bill in committee, 9-6. Given Idaho’s [already uptight attitude toward sex ed in schools](<https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title33/t33ch16/sect33-1608/>), that’s *two* pistols little Johnny will have to learn to use safely on his own.