NASHVILLE, TN– This school year, students in elementary, middle and high schools in some states will get a new safety lesson: what to do if they find a firearm.
Arkansas and Tennessee Utah They are the first states to enact laws requiring public schools to teach children as young as 5 years old the basics of gun safety and how to properly store weapons at home. Utah law only allows students to opt out of a lesson if requested by parents or guardians.
The Democratic governor has vetoed a similar law in Arizona, and lawmakers in at least five other states have introduced such proposals, putting schools at the center of another debate over… Armed violence.
In Tennessee, lesson plans can include posters, games, quizzes or videos with music and colorful illustrations of firearms, including a gun made of Lego bricks and an explanation of what a muzzleloader is.
The fact is that many children in the United States grow up around firearms.
At Berkler Elementary School in Memphis, a class of 16 fifth-graders was asked how many people had seen a real gun. Almost everyone raised their hands.
“It just shows you how much a class like this is needed,” said health and physical education teacher Tammy Chapman, who has been leading lessons at this school.
“While there is some controversy surrounding guns, it doesn’t always have to be,” said Emily Buck, public relations director for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, which created the curriculum in collaboration with the state Department of Education. “I think having some basic education and knowledge can be really beneficial in the long run.”
Lessons are often adapted from hunting safety courses already run by state hunting and wildlife agencies, but with key differences.
Hunter safety courses typically include hands-on instruction and an explanation of how to handle and fire a weapon safely. On the other hand, these classroom lessons emphasize that children should not touch a firearm.
In Tennessee, legislation prohibits any actual use of firearms, but in Arkansas, the law allows parents to choose alternative curricula, such as an off-campus firearms safety course that can include live weapons.
The main idea is a series of steps when a child finds a gun: stop, don’t touch, leave quickly, and tell an adult. This is consistent with instructions created by other organizations, including instructions from the National Rifle Association that contain action figures, videos, and coloring pages.
At Berclair Elementary School, faculty designed a relay race game to keep students engaged. In the gym, students took turns running toward buckets containing different pictures. Students who found a picture of a gun reported it to an adult. They also listened to a catchy song that emphasized the steps.
Buck acknowledged that adults may be responsible for creating unsafe situations at home, and said children should be prepared if they find weapons in unusual places, such as on shelves or under the mattress.
“We hope that students will take some of what they learned home, to their parents, and perhaps encourage their parents to modify their storage method,” Buck said.
Gun legislation is a partisan issue Throughout the United States, with Democratic-led states Enacting further restrictions on gun access and efforts to tighten gun laws often fail in Republican-controlled legislatures.
Republicans sponsored and supported education bills in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Utah. The legislation stipulates that the curriculum must include neutral viewpoints on any gun-related topics, such as gun ownership in general.
Voices for a Safer Tennessee, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization created by parents after the Al-Ahed School Shooting in Nashville, he supported the legislation. Supports the organization Gun ownership He advocates policies such as expanded Background checks.
Jessica Gagloa, the organization’s director of communications, said these lessons may encourage families to start the necessary conversations.
“It has the potential to prevent a gun-related tragedy, because we know that a moment of access can lead to a lifelong tragedy,” Gagloa said.
And in 2022, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found so Firearms It is the leading cause of death among children and adolescents. Arkansas and Tennessee have gun death rates among children and teens that exceed the national average, according to an AP analysis. But some Democrats and gun control advocates say this type of legislation is the wrong approach to gun violence.
“Using the school day to teach children about guns will not prevent adults from leaving their firearms unsecured or keeping deadly weapons out of dangerous hands,” Meg Beauregard, a fellow policy counsel at Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. “If lawmakers were serious about protecting students, they would pass laws that hold adults accountable, like safe storage — not burden children to keep them safe.”
States have given school districts some discretion over whether to use provided lesson plans or follow other instructions that adhere to the language of the laws. Schools can also decide which faculty or staff members will lead lessons, or in some cases hire police officers to talk about gun safety.
Schools in Arkansas may choose to incorporate the lessons as part of annual safety training, such as when they practice fire safety or tornado drills, said Spencer Griffith, deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
“Hopefully they will intervene in this in a way that helps prevent some of these incidents from happening, but not in a way that puts a political focus or fear around that, because it’s not the place for that,” Griffith said.
The issue of children being harmed in gun incidents is not new, even if the approach is new, said Berkeley School Superintendent Clint Davis.
“It’s not necessarily just a recent issue. It’s always been there,” Davis said. “And I think we are now really responding to the need to provide this type of training in school.”
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Saenz reported from Memphis. Associated Press writer Jonathan Mathis in Nashville and AP data journalist Kasturi Panangadi in Philadelphia contributed to this report.