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The number of suicides would not be effected by education, but how many accidental shootings would be prevented if gun owners were expected and required to get a little instruction along with their toys? How many gun thefts would be thwarted if gun owners had a clue as to how to store and secure their weapons when not in use?

I think this has changed for the better over time too. I remember seeing in the CDC chart that in 1973 there were almost the times as many accidental deaths. I don't know the result, I was not alive back then, but I would wager media attention, and the greater respect people now have for them.

But I wonder what the reaction would be if schools ever had a little class on 'gun safety' instruction. All I remeber was "if you see a gun, run away and tell an 'adult' (I often found that adults were usually more stupid than I was a that time). Regardless, this really didn't hit the mark when I went home, where there were guns, it didn't make sense to run screaming out of my own house. Luckily my parents taugh me the strictest guns saftey standards, so strict, that I was really nervous in Basic Training. Compared to my parents, the armies standards were really low.

If schools were to teach that in any class (annalogous to 'Sex Ed' or 'Drivers Ed') I would imagine "handgun control" or some other extremist lobby on the other end of the NRAs spectrum would go nuts too. As they would see it as schools advocating people having weapons.
At the same time, guns are not something everyone would have (not as universal and common as 'sex' or 'driving' so I think such education would be out of place there.

So, that leaves the question in my mind to be "what is the best forum to make people aware of firearms, and teach respect and saftey for them?"

Our culture:
Justin, I was shocked to read your words describing the school shootings after Columbine as "a series of copycat incidents". Not that I think you were wrong or meant anyone ill, but that a lot of people probably share this view. "Copycat incident" is a way of minimizing the crime, to say to ourselves that the perps were just creatures of little imagination trying to get some attention.

The focus on the perp ignores the victims. It also ignores the culture that would, first, raise children who would do such things "for attention", and second, brush it off as only a copycat crime and part of the cost of doing business.

I am sorry if I seem cavalier about it. Yes my focus was on the the perpetrators nd not on the victims. The victims were a result and we really can;t do anything to bring them back to life. I always felt safe in the assumption that concern fo rthem went without saying. The perps are the real problem (I think you might agree after reading your second paragraph), I think focusing on them is justified because if they never went on the shooting rampage, there woudl be no victims, and if there was no columbine, the 'copycats' would not have had that example to go off. Then again there is the danger they would have just tried something more creative. The end resut is that you are right, the problem is the society that produces these people in the first place.
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:-( I knew I didn't have time to respond in full, but I did not want to leave your post hanging. I will try to respond to the rest later.

Regards,
Justin Kelly