For all too many years, the debate surrounding gun control has raged on in American society. The question of whether or not private gun ownership should be legal draws incredibly strong reactions from both sides of the debate. Regardless of the answer, with the incredibly high rates of gun violence and deaths in the United States, it’s abundantly clear that greater firearm safety measures are needed.

Luckily, this is something that schools have become aware of in recent years and have begun to develop teaching strategies regarding firearms. Unfortunately, the current pandemic and lockdowns have introduced difficulties in implementing these strategies. What’s more, there has, in fact, been a spike in gun sales during the pandemic – owing partly to the success of online gun stores. As such, firearms safety education remains incredibly important, and there are a number of ways and reasons how and why it can be continued during the pandemic.

Why is Gun Safety Training Important?

Although weapons are perfectly safe when handled with appropriate care, consideration and preparation, they are clearly unsafe for those who use them and for people around them when maltreated. This is because the most injuries involving guns are in effect triggered by not upholding fundamental laws about the safety of weapons. If these simple guidelines are not enforced and errors occur, severe accidents may result and even death. It is incredibly important to adequately prepare anyone who handles weapons and the manner they manage, handle and care properly for guns.

How To Teach Gun Safety Remotely

Articles and documentaries

In the absence of physical classrooms, teachers have been relying more and more on assigning academic essays  based on articles and documentaries in order to focus their students on certain topics. In order to get students to research firearm control and gun laws, teachers are assigning essays that require their students to find and analyze various statistics and other sources of information. Students tasked with writing on firearm control can consult government information and essay-writing resources such as https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/gun-control/ to get the facts and formulate their thoughts. A writing course is an incredibly powerful education tool for teachers to focus their students on the issue of gun control.

Group projects

The restrictions in place to safeguard against COVID-19 have certainly changed the way students engage in group work, yet group projects continue to be one of the most effective ways to engage students in a topic. This could involve tasking students with creating a presentation on instances of gun violence or the basics of gun safety, for example. Not only do group projects give students the opportunity to collaborate in these times of isolation, but through the different groups presenting their work to one another, young people have the opportunity to educate each other.

Interview projects 

Many students may now find themselves only able to access the members of their immediate household. Teachers can put this to positive use by assigning their students tasks that open up healthy conversations among family members. By getting young people to conduct interviews or surveys on basic firearm safety with their family members, schools can spread gun control education beyond just their students and make an even greater contribution to gun safety in society!

Wrap Up

Like with any major social shift, education is the root of change. In order for attitudes towards gun safety to shift positively, our energy and efforts need to target those in school and college. By providing young people with education on gun laws and gun safety from a young age, we lower the chances of irresponsible gun usage later in life. This is especially important when we consider that many students may live in a house with access to firearms and that many tragedies arise from children with guns. 

The pandemic may have complicated many areas of our day-to-day lives, but the issue of gun safety is simply too great to be ignored. In fact, lockdown measures and remote learning offer many great opportunities to explore new ways of learning and make sure gun safety education has the widest impact possible!