Sure, teach Kansas kids gun safety. But ditch this silly, useless NRA school program | Opinion

When my son was still a very young child, one of the biggest challenges I had as a parent was teaching him to stop and look both ways at neighborhood intersections. His own instincts were to charge ahead without looking, eager to explore the world and whatever new thing it had to show him next.

Yes, there were stop signs at most of the intersections.

But I never believed that cars would always stop, or that my son would always be seen by the drivers. Underneath my constant “stop and look both ways” nagging — delivered time and time again to my kid, until it finally took — was this belief: You can’t expect that other people will be looking out for your safety. You have to look out for your own and be smart about it.

Which brings us to the topic of guns, naturally.

My philosophy about cars and intersections and safety also applies to firearms. You have to protect yourself. So I would really like to support a bill now in the Kansas Legislature that would nudge elementary schools across the state to offer gun safety classes based on the National Rifle Association’s Eddie Eagle program.

The problem? I can’t.

Let’s start with why I want to support the bill. It’s not that I love the NRA, which has evolved from its origins as a recreational gun safety group into a right-wing lobbying machine largely funded by a firearms industry eager to get its product into the hands of young people across the country. And it’s not that I embrace America’s gun culture, which seems increasingly hell-bent on proving that the maxim, “An armed society is a polite society,” is a monstrous lie.

But there are lots of guns out there. And lots of them kill Kansas kids — 125 children died in this state of gun injuries between 2016 and 2020, according to a September report from the Kansas attorney general’s office, in incidents ranging from outright homicides to suicides to tragic accidents. In 2020, more Kansas kids died from firearms than car crashes.

That’s horrific. If it were up to me, I’d make it a crime for parents not to lock up their guns at home. Realistically, that’s not going to happen in Kansas anytime soon. So if there’s a good way to teach kids to be safe around guns, we should absolutely do it.

Some folks think that unfairly puts the onus on potential victims, instead of gun owners.

“So, because now guns are everywhere, now we need to train our children to be safe?” asked state Rep. Stephanie Sawyer Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat, during a Kansas House committee hearing on the bill Tuesday.

Unfortunately, yes. Only if we can do so effectively, though.

And that’s the problem. Because it sure seems like the Eddie Eagle curriculum — complete with its team of Saturday morning cartoon-ready mascots — doesn’t actually work. A 2004 study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that kids who had been through the program didn’t actually follow its lessons when they encountered guns in real-world situations.

Of course, that study is nearly 20 years old. On Tuesday, though, NRA lobbyist Travis Couture-Lovelady came up short when pressed for fresh evidence of the program’s effectiveness.

“The program has been very effective for many years,” he said, adding: “I understand they tried to discredit the program through a study, but no, I find it’s highly effective.” He offered no numbers or data.

Simply asserting that something is effective doesn’t actually make it effective.

It’s not just an NRA problem, though. A 2018 Rutgers University study looked at a variety of children’s gun safety programs, including Eddie Eagle. Its conclusion: “Gun safety programs do not appear to reduce the likelihood that children will safely handle firearms.”

Which suggests that the Eddie Eagle bill is more about show than actual safety. We can try to teach kids to be safe around guns, but it probably won’t matter. As long as we keep guns in places where children live and play, though, they will always be in danger.