Sanity breaks out in Virginia: School kids to learn gun safety

OMG! Have you heard what those crazy redneck gun-lovers in Virginia are going to do? They're gonna teach GUN SAFETY to those poor defenseless kids in the public schools! Really!

Now that I'm through pretending to be a leftwingnut, here's the story from the Leftwingnut News, (AKA The Washington Post).

RICHMOND -- The Virginia General Assembly has directed the state's Board of Education to develop course materials for teaching gun safety to elementary school children that incorporate the guidelines of a National Rifle Association program.

The measure, approved during the legislature's recently concluded annual session, allows local school boards to choose whether to implement the program.

A leading Democrat in the state Senate had amended the bill to allow the state board to also incorporate materials from a second group, the National Crime Prevention Center. But Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) has proposed stripping the amendment from the bill, leaving the reference only to NRA material.

A McDonnell spokeswoman said there is no such group as the National Crime Prevention Center. The similarly named National Crime Prevention Council, best known for its McGruff the Crime Dog programs, did develop a gun safety curriculum several years ago, but a spokesman for the group said it has not been updated in several years.

What could possibly be wrong with teaching gun safety to elementary school children? Nothing, but when the left knee jerks, that's what leftwingnuts do, protest anything with the word gun.

As an NRA gun safety instructor, I'm all for teaching gun safety to the kids in school. They just might know what to do the next time some jerk goes off with a gun on school property.

There's one exception to that statement. DO NOT allow this ex-federal DEA agent teach gun safety to anybody, much less a group of 8th grade kids in Orlando, Fla., on April 9, 2004. Really.

An object lesson on gun safety: DEA agent shoots himself

I'm apparently one of the few gun-nuts left on the planet who hadn't seen this video which our state concealed-carry instructor showed to our instructor's class last week. When he asked how many had already seen it, I was almost the only one in the room who didn't raise his hand.

On April 9, 2004 DEA Agent Lee Paige shoots himself in the foot with a Glock .40S&W handgun while talking to children and parents about gun safety at the Orlando Youth Minority Golf Association.

It would be funny if it wasn't so stupid. The DEA agent had 14 years experience, but screws up the basic gun safety procedure of unloading his duty Glock. He opens the slide but does not remove the magazine. So when he hits the slide release, that puts a round in the chamber. Then he puts the Glock between his legs, pushes down on the slide-removal levers to remove the slide and pulls the trigger. And the inevitable happens with a loaded Glock: Boom!

Incredibly, he tries to continue his lecture while bleeding on the floor, saying it could happen to anyone. Yeah, anyone stupid enough to pull the trigger on a loaded firearm in their crotch.

Then it gets worse. He asks his assistant to bring out another gun, a full-auto M4 carbine. Needless to say, pandemonium erupts in the kids and parents watching. He assures them the M4 is unloaded and somebody in the back yells "You just shot yourself with an unloaded gun!"

And here's the postscript for this sad tale. The DEA fired him and released the video of the incident as an object lesson about gun safety. And the agent has now filed suit against the DEA alleging they have made him "unemployable." Do ya think shooting himself on video might actually be the proximate cause of this idiot becoming "unemployable"?