Gun education as a course in high school?

Onalaska superintendent questions bill currently going through Wisconsin legislature.

Onalaska school superintendent Fran Finco has all kinds of questions about a new bill going through the Wisconsin Legislature about gun education. 

The bill would allow school districts to offer gun education as an elective course in high schools.

Ken Skowronski, R-Franklin (right), is the lead sponsor of the bill. He says it would promote firearm safety and grow interest in trap shooting. 

“What we’re doing is allowing the high schools to offer an elective as a choice,” Skowronski said in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It can be yearlong, a quarter or a semester. It’s up to the school.”

 It would, however, require superintendents to develop curricula.

Finco says some of the language in the bill would need to be cleaned up, including that requirement for superintendents.

“So if you don’t need to offer the class and kids don’t need to take it, do you still need to require the curriculum?”  Finco wondered.

Finco also isn’t sure what’s wrong with the system as it is.

“Right now, there’s other avenues and it’s been working out really well,” Finco said. “It’s community education. It’s people using our schools for hunters’ safety after hours.

“Is it a redundancy to have to do it during the school day?”

And, there’s also the question about who teaches the course during school — as opposed to after.

“If we were going to do that, the law says it has to be taught by people who have proof of previous training in firearm safety,” Finco said. “Would that be one of our staff members, who it could be? Or, would it be somebody who would come off the street – either from the DNR or some other gun club?