We used to train our kids to shoot. It was an average site to see a stack of rifles in the corner of those little red school houses. Both for hunting diner on the way home or protection from wild animals, many young men carried their rifles.
Today, we can't trust kids or teachers with weapons. Only criminals and police.
Teach your children to shoot. Then they know proper fire arm safety, how to handle a weapon, what a gun actually does to something, and most importantly what to do with a found abandoned weapon.
all kids should learn age appropriate gun safety, there are still some school marksmanship programs. It makes no sense to teach them about strangers and drugs and sex but not a little bit of age appropriate gun safety. My friend's father took the Boston T to Sears to buy a rifle when he was 10 and that really was not that long ago.