Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Under the Gun: California legislators are considering the creation of curriculum for K-12 students to learn basic firearms safety through school. Some people are queasy about this, citing zero-tolerance policies and the rise of gun violence in schools. They figure what students don't know can't hurt them. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. More education generally fixes problems. And so many gun deaths are the result of stupid mistakes.

For example, I picked up the Detroit Free Press on Monday and saw a front-page article about a caretaker who accidentally shot and killed an 18-month old baby with a shotgun.

The caretaker was cleaning the house and found the shotgun under a couch. She wanted to see if it was loaded, so she pumped it and accidentally pulled the trigger.

Any number of basic firearm precautions would have prevented this tragedy. For one thing, she should have been conscientious about where she was pointing the gun. Always point a gun in a safe direction (ie, the ground) until you plan to use it. There was no reason to check to see if it was loaded, and pumping a shotgun loads a round into the chamber. Don't load a gun until you plan to use it. And her finger never had to touch the trigger. She could have easily held the shotgun from the butt as she inspected it. Don't touch the trigger until you plan to use it.

Any of those three safety measures would have prevented the death, and she should have been doing all three. But the easiest way for her to have avoided the tragedy is if she simply left the gun lying on the ground. Instead she was curious, and she killed a baby.

I often hear about people getting hurt and killed from carelessness with a gun. One of the most popular excuses is that the gun went off while somebody was cleaning it. Any gun owner knows that it's impossible to clean a loaded weapon. Simple education would stop many of these mistakes.

Volokh likens the liberal opposition to firearm safety education to the conservative opposition to safe-sex education. Apparently both of them are "abstinence only" on their own issues.

On both issues, we shouldn't be withholding education. Ignorance has never cured any maladies or fixed any problems. Ignorance is simply a tool for authorities to tell you how to think. Education gives people the knowledge and confidence to make the right decisions.