Firearms and education
Posted on February 1st, 2008 by Brad Spangler
On the topics of both firearms and education comes a news report saying W.Va. May Offer Gun Training in Schools. Excerpt:
A significant drop in the number of hunters in West Virginia has left a hole in the state’s budget, and one lawmaker thinks he has a solution: Allow children to receive hunter training in school.
Three points immediately come to mind.
- Opposed to public education — The term “public education” is a misnomer, in that what is commonly called “public” is actually “government”. As an anarchist, I am against the very existence of the state. I am, therefore, against state provision of services, including education, without necessarily being opposed to those services in and of themselves.
- Firearms curriculum — Strictly within the realm of education, I think age-appropriate firearms safety education and self-defense training are obviously wise curriculum additions. Thus, firearms in the curriculum should not even be controversial in my opinion.
- Hunting curriculum — I do question and condemn the focus of the initiative on hunting for sake of bumping up tax revenue. If firearms belong in an educational curriculum, it ought to be so for sake of firearms safety education and self-defense training in my opinion. Your opinion may vary. The way I see it, though, this sort of hunting focused firearms education for sake of tax revenue is sort of like a drivers-ed course that focuses on drag-racing for sake of bumping up fuel tax receipts. It’s evil to use influence gained via a violently-maintained monopoly over the educational system to alter behavior in order to maximize the potential milking of future taxpayers.
