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A Second Amendment workbook at an Illinois public school has parents outraged.
The bizarre definition in the workbook of the right to bear arms definitely does not mirror the one written by our Founding Fathers:
This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and they have not been in prison. The founding fathers included this amendment to prevent the United States from acting like the British who had tried to take weapons away from the colonists.
Bob Hill, the superintendent of the Springfield Public Schools District, told WMAY the district does not plan to remove the controversial workbook from the Grant Middle School classroom, despite the inaccuracies pointed out by a multitude of parents.
The actual definition of the Second Amendment reads: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
According to the Springfield school official, the workbook at the heart of the controversy is not the only resource that offers a definition of the Second Amendment. Hill also argued that the interpretation found in the workbook informs students about “what happens with the right to bear arms in the context of 2014.”
[At] no place in the book does it portray that that is the Second Amendment — it’s a study guide summary of the Second Amendment and the impact of the Second Amendment on the lives of people today,” he told the station.
Some states and cities do require the registration of firearms, he said.
But the text presented in the right to bear arms summary does not state that “some” places require registration. The workbook presents registration of all firearms everywhere as a fact and offers no details about how such laws apply to specific types of weapons and vary by location. Students undoubtedly walk away from the assignment thinking that if they one day own any type of gun, it will have to be registered with the government, regardless of where they call home.
One unnamed father told Storyleak:
When they covered the Second Amendment, he saw that they were stating that only ‘certain guns’ could be owned and that they had to be ‘registered,’ which he knew was false. He brought this to my attention as he felt it was wrong to teach these things that aren’t true. I’m extremely proud of my son for his actions. Me and my children are active gun enthusiasts and supporters of the Second Amendment. I have discussed the Second Amendment with them several times and explained what it meant and its importance to our country.
Second Amendment supporting parents have voiced concerns that the workbook is biased to a particular point of view about guns, and by extension, gun control. Hill claims that the workbook does not “proselytize” a particular political point of view. He went on to maintain that removing the workbook from classrooms at this point is “pretty unfair relative to what the teacher has going on.”
The workbook was created by a teacher who has since retired. During an interview with The Blaze, a father who made the world aware of the flawed teaching resource said he had met with both his son’s teacher and the head of the history department at the school. The father had been assured that his concerns would be addressed, but if removal of inaccurate information was the ultimate goal, that does not appear to be in the cards.
What do you think? Should the school remove the workbook from the classroom? Let us know in the comments below.
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