School Rifle Team Ban Proves ‘Gun Safety Laws’ Claims are Lies

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “[A] proposal in New York’s legislature would outlaw all high school shooting sports programs in the state — including air rifle teams and archery clubs — on the premise that they feed into a gun and shooting culture that could lead to violence,” the Associated Press reported Thursday.

“Schools should not be supporting the spread of gun culture in society,”  bill sponsor Manhattan Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal (a Democrat, naturally) insists. “If parents want their children to have shooting instruction, there are opportunities that have nothing to do with the school.”

The problem with that is, when students do it on their own time and share the experience, the anti-gun zealots melt down and report them to “authorities.” Ask Kyle Kashuv.

Besides, schools are supposed to be where people go to learn things, and a significant number of American homes are lived in by gun owners who pay taxes that fund public schools.

What Rosenthals’ bill aims to do is amend New York education laws as currently enacted that “authorize instructions to be given in the safe and proper use of firearms allowed by law.” What she wants to do instead is impose:

“PROHIBITION OF MARKSMANSHIP AND/OR SHOOTING PROGRAMS … NO PUBLIC SCHOOL SHALL OFFER MARKSMANSHIP AND/OR SHOOTING PROGRAMS.”

So much for gun-grabber claims that what they’re attempting to pass “commonsense gun safety laws.” That’s just a transparently obvious catchphrase to mask disarmament goals. If you want to learn about actual gun safety, particularly for youths, no organization does more – or is more qualified to do it – than the group they blame, the National Rifle Association. (As a side note to show how times have changed, back when DC Comics hadn’t yet been taken over by “progressives” and was headquartered blocks from what is now Rosenthal’s district – Superboy championed an NRA-sponsored youth shooting program.)

Rosenthal’s bill confirms the Orwellian cognitive dissonance that says ignorance is strength, or in this case, safety. As we see time and again, for oxymoronic “progressives,” every day is Opposite Day.

Another inconvenient truth, from no less a source than the U.S. Department of Justice in its 1994 research summary “Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse – Initial Findings,” the conclusion under “Gun ownership and delinquency” (p. 18) noted:

“Boys who own legal firearms, however, have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use and are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns.”

Rosenthal knows that ignorance leads to bigotry and fear, and that those, in turn, lead to hatred and a demand that “something must be done.” It is in her interests to keep constituents ignorant enough to continue giving her political power.

What she’s trying to do will actually make young people less safe, but that is of no concern to her.

All that matters to those who crave it is more power.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.