The article “Sending the right message” by Mark Knapp (opinion, March 6) is right on.

School systems across America have a psychosis against weapons. School systems are so fearful and so terrified of firearms that they believe to even allow a child to see a depiction of a firearm will somehow cause that child to be scarred for life, or cause that child to potentially become a violent abuser of weapons. This type of thinking is psychotic.

In the spirit of continuing to educate our students under the holy grail of “safety” and in the “best interest of the child,” I propose a law that requires each student to have been instructed in the safe handling, safe storing, proper carrying, and the actual firing of a firearm prior to graduating from high school. Shocking!

If schools across America want to send a message to the students, then let that message be that in the United States of America, they have a constitutional right to possess a firearm, that American soldiers have used and still use firearms all over the world to protect and to defend America, and that if our founders did not possess firearms, then those founders would not have been able to free themselves from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain.

America’s message should not be to instill students with a fear of firearms; let the students touch firearms, discharge firearms, and be instructed in the safe use and handling of firearms. I think that the best way to overcome a fear is to face that fear, and if that fear is faced in a safe and supportive manner, then students and school systems alike will learn more properly that firearms are to be respected and not to be feared.

Frank Comito, Federal Way