Resolved: All US Citizens from high school onwards should be taught how to handle a firearm.

Ok, thanks for accepting, this should be good. Just for clarification the High School Students would simply learn how to safely operate a firearm and be taught their respective states' laws concerning ownership and legal use. They would not be influenced to buy a firearm. 1. It would increase Safety Time and time again we hear horror stories of students believing that a gun is nothing but a toy to be gawked at with friends and brought to school. they too often believe that guns are romantic and that it is completely OK for them to use weapons for "Vigilante Justice". By implementing Gun Safety classes as a required part of the High School Curriculum in Health, we help change this image so that weapons like firearms are better understood and used safely. Accidental Shooting deaths were the cause of 680 deaths in 2008 (most recent source I could find) as well as 15,500 injuries. In addition to these numbers, The Survivor Club went on to state that, "Each year approximately 100 people are injured or killed while cleaning a firearm and failing to exercise proper caution. Every gun, whether loaded or unloaded, must be treated as if it is loaded at all times. Many accidental shootings occur because someone believes a gun is unloaded, points it at someone and pulls the trigger as a "joke. " The problem is, many guns can still fire even after the magazine has been removed if a bullet has been inadvertently left in the chamber. " The answer according to the American Rifle Association is that, "Gun owners and those who live around firearms, including children, must be taught the proper use and treatment of firearms " That is one of the only ways that accidental firearm deaths can be reduced. 2. By teaching firearm use and safety in school, we encourage our citizens to be more proactive in their rights as stated in the Constitution. Th citizens must be aware of their rights in order to know how to exercise them, and be able to use them in times of great need. When the time calls, we need our citizens to be able to know that they have the right to defend themselves, when you are in a life or death situation, the last thing that needs to be going through your head is whether what you are about to do (probably to save your life) is legal. The importance of defense cannot be understated, according to the "Birth Place of the Second Amendment Society", "The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year-old gang-banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender. " For these reasons of defense, firearm education is critical to the general safety of the populace. 3. Gun Education has been proven to lower crime rates. The country where gun education has been proven effective is Switzerland, and it is thus the country in which I base this contention. The Swiss are a unique country in that the have the most well-educated populace in the realm of gun safety and use as every able-bodied male is required to learn to operate a firearm. In fact almost every household in Switzerland has an assault rifle in it. You would think that this would be dangerous but according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the rate of unintentional deaths per 100,000 people in Switzerland is .13, compared to the US's .23. Even more shockingly the homicide rate in Switzerland is also considerably lower at .53 per 100,000 as compared to the US's 4.14. The statistics cannot be refuted, for two very similar countries economically and socially, the main difference is Gun education laws, and that difference means that. The US has almost twice as many unintentional deaths (rate-wise) The US has 8 times as many homicides (also rate-wise) Therefore, it would be logical to assume that by increasing education that we benefit the entire country when it comes to safety, which is in all honesty the focus of this debate.