This week, we're taking a deep dive into the new Second Amendment history course that the Department of Education just granted funding.
To give us insight into what the University of Wyoming's Firearms Research Center, which received the grant, hopes to accomplish, we have Ashley Hlebinsky back on the show. She is the Executive Director of the center, wrote the grant request, and will be one of the main people overseeing development of the educational resources.
She said the goal of the project is not to impart a partisan view of the Second Amendment or guns onto students, but, rather, to give educators access to primary sources and scholars from varying viewpoints. She said the grant process was anything but political, and insisted the course materials would be as well.
Hlebinsky said the plan is to develop a digital archive of historical documents related to the creation and ratification of the Second Amendment, as well as the state and federal gun laws that have come since that time. She said the center would develop video lessons that could be used for teacher education or classroom instruction. The teachers will also have access to webinars featuring Second Amendment scholars and the opportunity to attend an in-person conference.
The course material will be available to secondary school teachers nationwide. However, it won't be a mandatory course. Instead, it's an opt-in teaching resource intended to help improve civics education during the nation's 250th anniversary.