Guns. Is there anything more American? It was guns that secured our independence, guns that allowed us to prosper and expand from coast to coast, and guns that won two world wars. 

The concept is so baked into our country that out of everything our founding fathers could have put in the Bill of Rights, protecting ownership of firearms was top of the list, second only to freedom of expression. 

Firearms and their proper usage should be taught en masse to students. It is a right protected by the Constitution, but like free speech and religious freedoms, it has been suppressed and attacked by American school systems and the greater American government.  

Groups like the Boy Scouts of America have been training member scouts in safe firearm usage for a hundred years. It is catastrophic that the United States protects the right to use firearms but fails to offer firearm usage and safety training classes in schools. 

Teaching proper firearm usage would reduce accidental incidents involving firearms and allow more people to be able to defend themselves from criminals. If more people were trained to use firearms, especially at an early age, crime would be reduced significantly as a result. 

If the thought of having firearms in schools sounds scary, you might have been conditioned by fear propaganda to react negatively. The mainstream media tends to sensationalize hostile shooter events with calls to restrict firearm access without looking at the facts first. 

Calls to defund, and effectively disarm, our police forces have led to the biggest crime increases in United States history. There is a reason why cities with the most restrictions on firearm ownership also have the highest gun incident rates in the country. Gun control policies have been tried and have failed.

It is only reasonable to assume that criminals with no regard for America’s laws are not going to follow any additional gun control laws that end up making law-abiding citizens less safe. This is why firearm control policies will never work, especially with how gun-oriented American culture is. 

Gun rights need to be expanded in the United States and not restricted by those with personal armed security forces. Firearms are the ultimate self-defense protection and deterrent, and it is vital that schools allow students to practice exercising their constitutional rights in a controlled environment.