NRA’s ‘Everyone Gets A Gun’ plan: Kids must pass shooting tests to advance in school

NRA commentator Billy Johnson this week proposed that children be forced to learn shooting skills in order to graduate as part of a plan to enact "gun-required zones" in the United States, and use taxpayer money to subsidize firearm purchases.

In a video title "Everyone Gets A Gun" that was released on Monday, Johnson complains that U.S. gun policy was focused on limiting access to firearms.

"As a country we have an education policy. Imagine if that policy was about limiting who has access to public education," he argued. "I mean, let's be honest, the danger in educating people to think is that they might actually start to think for themselves. Perhaps we should think seriously about who we give access to knowledge. They could use it to do a lot of damage."

"We don't have a U.S. gun policy. We have a U.S. anti-gun policy," the NRA commentator continued. "Gun policy driven by people's need for guns would seek to encourage people to keep and bear arms at all times. Maybe it would even reward those who do so. What if instead of gun free-zones we had gun-required zones?"

In order to make his plan work, Johnson said that children would need to be introduced to firearms at a young age.

"Just like we teach them reading and writing, necessary skills. We would teach shooting and firearm competency," he explained. "It wouldn't matter if a child's parents weren't good at it. We'd find them a mentor. It wouldn't matter if they didn't want to learn. We would make it necessary to advance to the next grade."

Johnson also suggested that the government would have to "subsidize" the purchase of guns like it did with food, education, and health care.

"I mean, perhaps we would have government ranges where you could shoot for free or a yearly allotment of free ammunition," he said. "Gun policy, driven by our need for guns would protect equal access to guns, just like we protect equal access to voting, and due process, and free speech."

Johnson concluded by lamenting that even Second Amendment advocates "can't fathom a world where we would treat guns as a need."

Watch the video below from the NRA, broadcast July 21, 2014.

(h/t: Media Matters)