LANSING (WWJ) -- Hunting and firearms safety classes could soon be coming to Michigan schools.
The Michigan House has approved a bill to give public school districts the option to offer firearm safety education as a physical education or extracurricular class.
House Bill 4285 directs the Michigan Department of Education to consult with the Department of Natural Resources to develop a model firearm safety course by Sept. 1 of this year.
While the bill would not allow guns or ammo on school property, students would learn about safe handling and cleaning of a firearm, firearms maintenance, and safe hunting practices by certified hunter education instructors.
The bill's co-sponsor Rep. Parker Fairbairn, from the Upper Peninsula, said this would be an optional class, offered to high schoolers as an elective.
Fairbairn said this legislation comes amid a nationwide decline in hunting participation, and a rise in Michigan's deer population.
"You've seen really dwindling numbers of hunter safety classes even being offered throughout the state," Fairbairn said, in an interview Thursday with WWJ Newsradio 950's Pat Vitale. "So, this will give our kids and our youth the opportunity to experience that if they'd like to."
Fairbairn said it's his hope that these classes would be offered at schools all over the state of Michigan. At least those schools that want it.
"They'd have to get approval and get it into their curriculum," Fairbairn said. "Again, it'd be an option for them, though; we're not mandating this on them. It would be an option for them to take it up."
If a school district decides not to offer the course, a student could still take the course for credit in a neighboring school district, if they have a cooperative education program as outlined under Michigan’s School Aid Act.
Students who complete the course would meet the state's requirement for obtaining a hunting license.
"It would be teaching them gun safety, all sorts of hunting safety pieces; whether it's woods safety, all sorts of stuff," Fairbairn said. "So, it's really going to be a really good program for the kids to even get out into the woods, learn safety in the schools when it comes to the outdoors and gun safety."
The legislation now moves to the Senate for consideration.