Did I say teaching them to kill? No. I said teach them how to handle a gun. There's a million miles of difference and if the teaching buys the time to teach the conscience and the ethics with it, then it's worth it. I never said we were training them to be soldiers. There's ten year olds all over this damn country who can clean, load, and fire a gun. I never once suggested that they be trained as soldiers or trained to kill.

I simply said that if it makes them feel respected and secure to be allowed to learn to use a fire arm under supervision, then it's not necessarily a bad idea, especially for the older students. With power, responsibility. The opportunity to teach both at once should not be discarded in favour of some rose-tinted ideal that says that it is right and ethical that you should take children who already kill to protect themselves, lose their trust by dropping the ball, and then tell them to go sit down and do their homework because somehow you are preserving their mythical innocence by refusing to allow them the means to cope with their present reality.