It's the law enforcement's job to exact justice after a crime being committed, or stop an ongoing crime when they are present, or to prevent a crime from taking place by predicting when and where it will happen and taking proactive measures (and they often fail to do that, cue Baltimore riots) It's your job to keep you yourself safe AT ALL TIME, by not getting mixed with the wrong crowd, by not driving alone in a bad neighborhood in the middle of the night, and ultimately, by carrying a gun. That's why I think it is necessary to encourage women of all age, color and profession in the US to carry firearms. If you find that distasteful, try to tell that to the victims of Cologne.
I 2nd the proposal stated in the OP. I also believe society should take it a step further. Along with woodshop, metalshop, home economics, and archery classes, there should be firearms and legal courses. The firearms won't have to be real of course, but society should let people know mechanisms they can use to defend themselves.
Law enforcement is decidedly not supposed to 'exact justice'. There is another branch of government that does that, with the help of juries. We have seen more than enough of cops and prosecutors who think they are supposed to exact justice.
There still are. Nowhere near as much as there used to be tho. It's my understanding that during the fifties almost all high schools had rifle teams. Most assuredly a hard learned lesson from WWII about civil preparedness. Those lessons seemed to have faded with time along with school rifle teams but there's still some out there. In the 70's it wasn't rare to see a student get off the school bus with a long gun and walk into school with it. No one fainted at the sight. Wood shop was a great place to duplicate a stock out of a fancy figured wood to dress it up a bit. I personally built a working scaled replica of a civil war cannon for credits in wood, metal and history. Killed three birds with one stone. Wasn't like I wasn't building this stuff at home anyway, might as well get credit for it. History teacher was gullible enough to be persuaded into letting me touch it off right outside the backdoor of the school. me thinks he had no clue how much noise a 1.5" bore cannon would make. He was gone before the echo faded. Presumably to beg forgiveness from the principle Nowadys half the town would be jailed for such fun. The NRA Eddie Eagle children's gun safety program is available to any school system with the intelligence to utilize it. Probably not many, definately not enough. I agree, education is key in preventing accidents. Years ago most kids grew up around guns and knew what's what. Today some young adults who've never seen a gun can get into trouble when one finally enters their lives.
I would have appreciated a class like that. The board closed down our woodshop class the next year I took it. I had archery and home economics and always appreciated the lessons. See, I didn't know about the Eddie Eagle program. Maybe that's what it is. No one knows these programs are available. Even still, the board works overtime trying to cut down on classes that I believe would make better citizens and they need to undo some of these cuts.
Meh, they know it's out there. The letters NRA are a turnoff to academia to put it mildly. It's really that simple. Vilification is easier than education and education takes a back seat to "the cause" these days.
Rifle teams were not common in rational parts of country at any time in the 1950s or 1970s. it was not common to see a kid get off a school bus with a long gun at that time. It would have caused the same sort of chaos as it would today. Kids got expelled from grade school for bringing a pocket cap pistol to school. The NRA in those days was a worthwhile organization focused on gun education and gun safety and in support of rational gun control laws. Then the crazy whackjobs took over.
There used to be the left won't let guns within a thousand yards of a school now unless carried by a felon.