If sex education were banned from public schools, do you think teenagers would be so dumb that they couldn’t figure it out on their own? Only a crazy person would answer, “Yes. The human race would die off due to a lack of procreation if students were not taught sex education in school.”
The Biden administration is that crazy. And some Democrats — a party that has an uncanny ability to stick together no matter what — have had enough of the insanity.
Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat for Montana, penned an opinion piece published Tuesday by Fox News. In the piece, Tester called the Biden administration out for withholding federal funding from public schools that have hunting or archery programs in their curriculum.
You heard that right. The Biden administration is withholding funding from schools that teach students how to shoot and hunt. A major component of that curriculum, of course, is safety.
“In Montana and across rural America, our schools have long offered shooting sports and hunter safety classes that teach our students gun safety and personal responsibility,” Tester wrote. “But recently the Biden administration and folks in Washington who don’t understand our Montana values decided to block funding for these important gun safety programs.”
Tester may be off track. Progressives do understand “Montana values,” which are the norm in red states, but they hate them and won’t be happy unit they are eradicated.
“Let me be clear,” Tester continued, “I think that’s a poor decision that will hurt thousands of students who benefit from these resources every year.”
That’s putting it mildly.
President of the National Archery in the Schools Program Tommy Floyd said his organization “boasts 1.3 million students from nearly 9,000 schools across 49 states who are enrolled in archery courses,” according to Fox News.
“It’s a negative for children,” Floyd told Fox Digital. “As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students. In many communities, it’s a shooting sport and the skills from shooting sports help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.”
Hunter education courses certify more than 500,000 students annually, according to Fox. There have been fewer hunting-related injuries over the years. Responsible hunting also contributes to healthy populations of game.
In short, hunting and archery courses in public schools are beneficial. Where’s the negative? On what grounds should they be defunded? Wait for it — mass shootings.
Huh?
The Department of Education said its decision to defund the hunting and archery programs was based on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Congress passed the BSCA and President Biden signed it last year “after a string of mass shootings,” according to Fox.
The BSCA seeks to promote “safer, more inclusive and positive” school environments, according to Fox. It came on the heels of mass shootings at a grocery store in New York and the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting.
The Department of Education’s tendentious interpretation of the BSCA boils down to prohibiting funds from any program that will provide dangerous weapons or “training in the use of a dangerous weapon,” according to Fox.
If that sounds like a bunch of bureaucratic bull, it’s because it is. Taken at face value it makes the assertion that — somehow — hunting and archery classes produce mass shooters. No correlation between mass shooters and hunting classes is provided. In essence, “safe, more inclusive and positive” schools translate into, “Guns are bad and must be banned.”
“The administration is misinterpreting the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” Tester wrote. “Limiting these important and long-established training classes does nothing to improve safety. Instead — to put it bluntly — the administration has it completely backwards.”
“The bottom line is that anyone who has ever lived in rural America would know that shooting sports and hunting are simply part of our Montana way of life,” Tester continued. “Efforts to strip these school safety courses are just the latest example of folks in Washington not understanding our rural communities, and I’ll do everything in my power to stop them in their tracks.”
It should be noted that Tester votes for Biden’s agenda 91 percent of the time, according to Five Thiry Eight. I suspect his criticism of the administration is more out of political necessity than personal conviction about the Second Amendment. But you take what you can get. When political necessity signals a return to a course of common sense, it’s a good sign.
“My bipartisan Defending Hunters Education Act, which I recently introduced,” Tester wrote, “would require the Department of Education to restore school districts’ ability to use federal dollars for school archery, gun safety and hunter education programs. This commonsense bill will protect Montana’s long-standing and proud tradition of educating our future generations on the importance of responsible gun ownership and hunting — and it will only make our students and communities safer.”
“This is not a Republican or Democratic issue,” Tester continued. “In recent weeks my colleagues, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Bob Casey, D-Pa., have joined me in leading this bipartisan effort.”
“Efforts to strip these school safety courses are just the latest example of folks in Washington not understanding our rural communities, and I’ll do everything in my power to stop them in their tracks.”
“Our Montana way of life is worth defending,” Tester concluded. “It’s what I’ve always done, and it’s what I’ll continue to do.”
Our American way of life isn’t just worth defending, it needs defending. The quicker Democrats turn against the progressive agenda the better. In the meantime, it’s hunting season and hunting is as instinctual as the sex drive. It isn’t taught; it’s guided.
If the schools won’t teach kids gun safety, their families will. That’s instinctual too. It’s that simple.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
