Firearms safety would be the most popular class in school . . . again.
Some 2,700 teens aged 16-19 died in car crashes in 2010, the most recent year for which the federal agency’s website has figures, and 282,000 were injured. So, the nation’s schools have rightly implemented programs that teach teens to be safer drivers.
h/t, Instapundit
“So, the nation’s schools have rightly implemented programs that teach teens to be safer drivers.”
Which program has impacted the teen car accident rate exactly as much as the zero-tolerance for guns policy has affected murder. As in, not at all.
Ever notice when there’s two or more young people in a car these days, its always the girl driving? Ever wonder why boys are not driving? I did. So I looked into it a little bit.
The reason is INSURANCE. Boys pay double or more what girls do. To the point where your average entry level McJob can’t cover even insurance alone, much less insurance plus a car payment and gas too. So the girls drive and the boys play iPod or whatever in the passenger seat. That’s a major change in society, and nobody seems to notice.
This situation has probably save more teenaged lives than all the driver’s ed classes ever given. Makes for some pretty frigged up boys though, if my observations are worth anything. Kid doesn’t get to drive himself around like a man until he’s 25, that’s going to leave a mark.
You don’t *have* to drive a car. Ban them.
I love repeating this to a brainwashed conditioned generation of gun-phobic sheepies but, public school is where I learned to shoot – in Cadet Corps. – at the school’s rifle range in the basement.
Kids were more trustworthy when they were trusted by their elders.
Me too Occam. Basement of the school gym, taught by an ex-Navy commodore. Before that, hunting ground hogs with the old man. Awesome fun.
What do we have today? Helicopter parenting as a kid, and getting hauled around like dead weight as a young adult. By women. In case anyone was wondering where “failure to launch” syndrome comes from in young men these days, there’s a clue right there. Nothing to live for.
IMHO if a kid hasn’t had at least one near-death experience before he’s twenty, he’s pooched for life.
Rob Huck said: “You don’t *have* to drive a car. Ban them.”
I’m sure somebody is working on it. We saw the start of it in the War On SUVs.
Think about it from a Lefty perspective. Individual mobility is one of the greatest changes wrought by the Twentieth Century. People can -leave- if the government gets too crushing. The Russians had to build a friggin’ wall around Eastern Europe just to keep everybody from running away. (Iron Curtain, youngsters. Look it up.)
With cars, you can jump in the family fliver and get outa Dodge City anytime you like. Very inconvenient for Lefties. But if all there is available is “public transit”, as in nice easily controlled buses and trains, nobody goes anywhere that Big Brother doesn’t let them.
Just think of all the wonderful walking space there’d be in Toronto if the only game in town was TTC or Shank’s Mare.
We could easily live to see zero-tolerance for cars in school. That’s why I have a big, BIG vehicle. Just to be contrary.
Excellent article and absolutely correct, the attitude about gun control is clearly about control and in the US about disarming the American public and turning guns in to some kind of demonic tool by indoctrinating and punishing the young. I wonder if Obama and his ilk are beginning to fear what Americans might do to them in the future. I recall Biden’s short lived research on the causes of gun violence origninally was to include a study of the influence of film & TV. That was never mentioned again and the only conclusion was that gun violence was brought about because people owned guns. The ultimate aim of all this is to remove people’s right to own any kind of gun.
As a former teacher I’m ashamed of my profession for being part of this evil play. I remember that in my school we allowed the facilities to be used to teach a safe gun handling course (often taught by a teacher)and that meant real guns were sometimes brought in. Todays educrate idiots would go ballistic over this.
Not sure if this is old news here or not but maybe we should be looking at Selective Seratonin Reintake Inhibitors (SSRIs) not guns,
http://www.wpbf.com/news/health/ssri-antidepressants-linked-to-mass-shootings/-/8788734/20036082/-/7cldhwz/-/index.html
http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/list-of-mass-shootings-linked-to-ssri-drugs/
Kids were more trustworthy when they were being taught right from wrong, respect for human life, and how to accept responsibility for their own actions. I would trust yesteryear’s teenagers, of whom I was one, with a great deal of liberty.
Many of today’s teenagers are NOT being taught to be responsible adults and cannot be trusted with the keys to the car, much less the keys to America’s future. Guns in the hands of people steeped in nihilistic ideologies, contempt for America, disregard for human life, moral relativism, and all the other progressive rot could easily create a very dangerous situation, indeed.
John Adams explained it well: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
The progressive left has produced a large subset of the population that is inadequately prepared to exercise the liberties we used to know.
Yeah well, back in the day, every male highschool student hereabouts was in the cadet corps…no option unless you were bound to a wheelchair.
Everyone learned to shoot….no one got shot….we even had FAL and Bren groups…where disassembly etc of these devises was practiced.
Now cadets in school is a no-no and the rifle range is storage. Cadets are conducted like boy scouts, out of certain churches, with female “leaders” and air rifles…..
A conversation with one of the aforementioned leaders established that they were largely involved to ensure that some “violent/gun crazy” elements would not be leading.
‘nough ta make ya mad ‘nough ta bite a pockypine…….
My daughter shot weapons including pistols in Scouts (the older kids?) as an extra-curricular activity. My son learned how to march in Cadets.
Cadet instructors blew up a room full of kids with a live grenade about 30 years ago in Quebec. Thus ended weapons in cadets. The boy soldier thing has the pinko-commies peeing their pants too. It is interesting that the Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded because the French speaking commando made their buddies ingest excrement. There must be something in the water or a genetic problem out east.
The Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded (and I’m not saying they should have been) because they embarassed the government and made a large number of Canadians uncomfortable with what was reported of them. And that wasn’t only from the francophone commando.
Such death rates are totally unacceptable and the first move of the government should be to raise the driving age to 25. Vehicles should not be permitted within 1000′ of a school. Any student in a school who draws a picture of a vehicle or makes a reference to a vehicle should be immediately suspended. Parents would be forbidden from driving their kids to school as this would potentially result in the student making a vehicle related comment which would result in immediate suspension under the new zero tolerance policy.
All textbooks would be scrutinized for automobile related references and these would be changed to bicycle or ox cart. Only police would be allowed to drive near a school as only policemen and soldiers should be allowed to have access to vehicles. After all, if it saves only one life its worth it.