In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Wellington mom pushes "gun safety " program
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Wellington mom pushes gun safety program
By Meghan Meyer, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 15, 2002
WELLINGTON -- When Debbie Balcaitis found a loaded gun in the street just steps away from her children's elementary school, she was terrified.
What if one of her children, Brittany, in the fourth grade, or Mandi, in the fifth grade, had found the gun outside Binks Forest Elementary School? Or even worse, what if someone with sinister motives had come across it?
It set her to thinking about how little control she has over the environment she sent her daughters into every day. She started lobbying for a gun safety program at the school.
"It's really scary when someone loses a gun and doesn't even know he lost it," Balcaitis said.
The gun belonged to a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy Steve Dickenson, who left it on the roof of his car and drove off, sending it into the street. He was reprimanded and had to take a training course.
When Balcaitis called the sheriff's office to ask about gun safety programs for schools, she talked to Sgt. Tom Hannigan, who heads the community policing program and supervised the deputy who lost the gun. Hannigan told her about the Risk Watch program, a curriculum tailored to different age groups from kindergarten to eighth grade that teaches children about eight areas of risky behavior and how to avoid them. Among the programs is a course on gun safety.
The National Fire Protection Association developed the program and chose Palm Beach County as a test site in 1998, said Gerri Penney, who coordinates the program through Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.
The sheriff's office and fire-rescue chipped in to pay for the $30,000 materials, she said, and she's looking for grant money to continue paying for it. About 20 county schools, including Lighthouse Point Elementary school in Jupiter and Carver Middle School in Delray Beach use the program.
Balcaitis is working with Principal Lynne McGee to see whether she can bring Risk Watch or a similar program to Binks Forest. McGee said she hasn't had enough time to research it, but would like to bring some kind of program to her school. She'll start by scheduling night meetings for parents this summer to teach them about gun safety in the home.
"We'd start with the parents and see how the reception is," McGee said. "There might be certain things parents want addressed and others not... it wouldn't be automatically mandated that each child has to attend this."
meghan_meyer@pbpost.com
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/local_news_d3a01ccce593503100ed.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Meghan Meyer, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 15, 2002
WELLINGTON -- When Debbie Balcaitis found a loaded gun in the street just steps away from her children's elementary school, she was terrified.
What if one of her children, Brittany, in the fourth grade, or Mandi, in the fifth grade, had found the gun outside Binks Forest Elementary School? Or even worse, what if someone with sinister motives had come across it?
It set her to thinking about how little control she has over the environment she sent her daughters into every day. She started lobbying for a gun safety program at the school.
"It's really scary when someone loses a gun and doesn't even know he lost it," Balcaitis said.
The gun belonged to a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy Steve Dickenson, who left it on the roof of his car and drove off, sending it into the street. He was reprimanded and had to take a training course.
When Balcaitis called the sheriff's office to ask about gun safety programs for schools, she talked to Sgt. Tom Hannigan, who heads the community policing program and supervised the deputy who lost the gun. Hannigan told her about the Risk Watch program, a curriculum tailored to different age groups from kindergarten to eighth grade that teaches children about eight areas of risky behavior and how to avoid them. Among the programs is a course on gun safety.
The National Fire Protection Association developed the program and chose Palm Beach County as a test site in 1998, said Gerri Penney, who coordinates the program through Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.
The sheriff's office and fire-rescue chipped in to pay for the $30,000 materials, she said, and she's looking for grant money to continue paying for it. About 20 county schools, including Lighthouse Point Elementary school in Jupiter and Carver Middle School in Delray Beach use the program.
Balcaitis is working with Principal Lynne McGee to see whether she can bring Risk Watch or a similar program to Binks Forest. McGee said she hasn't had enough time to research it, but would like to bring some kind of program to her school. She'll start by scheduling night meetings for parents this summer to teach them about gun safety in the home.
"We'd start with the parents and see how the reception is," McGee said. "There might be certain things parents want addressed and others not... it wouldn't be automatically mandated that each child has to attend this."
meghan_meyer@pbpost.com
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/local_news_d3a01ccce593503100ed.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
If she only takes it as far as she says she's going to take it, then kudos to her for teaching gun safety to children.
Stand And Be Counted
finding guns and what to do. Maybe it is time to also teach children
(by parents) what to do. Just like not getting into a car with
strangers and the likes, and saying no to drugs. It can be a cruel,
cruel world, and parents must take SOME responsibity for their childs
safety and do some teaching. Schools and "Big Brother" should not
have to it all.
quote:
I believe the "Eddy Eagle Program" by the NRA goes into children
finding guns and what to do. Maybe it is time to also teach children
(by parents) what to do. Just like not getting into a car with
strangers and the likes, and saying no to drugs. It can be a cruel,
cruel world, and parents must take SOME responsibity for their childs
safety and do some teaching. Schools and "Big Brother" should not
have to it all.
Boomer
Protect our Constitutional Rights.
- Life NRA Member
"If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878