Just before the school year kicked off, the North Carolina General Assembly voted to override Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of HB 193, which allows certain employees at non-public schools to carry a firearm or stun gun on school grounds. At the same time, across the border in Tennessee, legislation was implemented mandating gun safety education classes in Tennessee public schools for children as young as kindergarten.
In 2024, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation mandating gun safety education in public schools, which took effect in the 2025 academic year, reported the Washington Post. Students will learn to identify the parts of a gun, including the trigger, barrel, and muzzle. Guidelines vary depending on grade level, but areas of education include school safety, firearms storage, and injury prevention.
“The devil is in the details,” Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, told the Carolina Journal. “Is it actually education of firearms safety vs. propaganda against firearms? Grass Roots North Carolina would support firearm safety education in schools. In fact, we have supported legislation for firearm safety education in the General Assembly many times in the past, provided it is not used as a means of indoctrinating children against firearms.”
Tennessee’s legislation is targeted at lowering gun-related injuries. The state has a 37.1% higher firearm-related child death rate than the 2022 national average, according to the 2024 annual report from the TN Department of Health. According to the same report, there were 65 child deaths as a result of homicide in 2022, a 16.2% increase from 2018. Child homicide from 2018 to 2022 in the state of TN. Firearms are the leading cause of child deaths, not only in Tennessee but across the nation. The national average for child death related to firearms is 3.5 per 100,000, whereas the state of Tennessee averages 4.8 per 100,000.
“First, gun safety education is almost always a good idea,” Jon Guze, senior fellow of legal studies for the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal. “My recollection is that when gun safety training became popular in the 1970s and 80s, the frequency of gun accidents declined dramatically. That’s part of the reason every Second Amendment advocate I know — and I know a lot of them — advocates gun safety training. Even constitutional carry advocates, who think gun owners should be allowed to carry concealed weapons without permits, acknowledge that the value of the training that permit applicants currently have to undergo.”
The Department of Education in Tennessee has published instructional outcomes and guidance for firearms safety education for grades K-12. Required instruction includes safe storage of firearms and school safety regarding firearms. Instruction must be neutral on issues regarding gun rights and gun violence. Instruction prohibits the presence or use of live ammunition, fire, or firearms. The instructional guide also outlines educational goals for various grade levels for firearms. Safety measures such as never touching a firearm seen or found and properly storing firearms are emphasized.
Last year, Guze participated in a series of discussions about community safety organized by the NC Leadership Forum.
“By design, the participants represented a wide variety of occupations, regions, and political and ideological points of view,” said Guze. “Some were strong Second Amendment advocates. Others were strongly in favor of gun control. Nevertheless, when the idea of firearms training in high school came up, almost everyone seemed to think it was a good idea. No one, as far as I can recall, raised any objections.”
Similar legislation has been proposed in the General Assembly in previous sessions, but has never been passed into law, including HB 612 introduced in 2017. In 2019, the STEM Electives Course Using Ballistics Science would have initiated an elective course for high school students on the history of firearms, firearms safety operations and use, and the underlying characteristics of ballistics sciences.