JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced Tuesday that his office has joined a coalition of 24 states in urging Congress to enact the Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act.
This bill would protect funding for school archery, hunting, and firearm safety courses in public schools throughout the nation after the Biden Administration threatened to defund them.
“I’m not going to let coastal elites who are ignorant of how Missourians really live rid our schools of these safety programs,” said Attorney General Bailey. “Hunting and outdoor shooting sports are a way of life in our state, and these courses are vital to giving students the knowledge they need to safely participate in these activities.”
The attorneys general note that forcing public schools to end these programs by withholding funding makes it more likely that students will act recklessly around firearms and thus harm themselves or others.
The letter states that “The bill {HB 5110} would stop the Department from threatening schools with the loss of ESEA funds for offering commonplace educational opportunities that they have provided for decades. Every other provision in the BSCA remains unchanged. Whatever one may think about the rest of the BSCA or gun control more generally, this bill will preserve access to training that teaches children not to misuse firearms or other weapons.”
The States urge Congress to heed bipartisan concern about the Department of Education’s stance and solve this problem through enacting commonsense legislation, rather than forcing the States to end the Department’s overreach through litigation.
General Bailey was joined in signing the letter by attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.