The House of Representatives voted late Tuesday evening in favor of a bill overturning the Biden administration’s decision to restrict federal financing for school shooting sports courses.
The Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act was approved by the House 424-1, with 208 Democrats and 216 Republicans voting in favor and only one legislator, Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, voting against.
On August 1, Representative Mark Green, R-Tennessee, introduced the bill. In July, he said that the Department of Education had cut financing for school hunting and archery programs.
Green said following the vote Tuesday that hunters and fishermen are the best conservationists. Hunting, whether with a gun or a bow, is one of the most effective ways to manage animal populations, safeguard our natural resources, and connect with nature. My Hunting Heritage and Education Act is crucial for our children’s future.
He stated that American kids should be urged to participate in stimulating athletic activities that promote respect for nature and the capacity to concentrate on a goal. Green also said that more than 50,000 kids in Biden State will only be impacted by the Joe Biden administration’s financial choices.
The Education Department released federal instructions to hunting education groups in July, noting that hunting and archery activities in schools will be cut. According to the guidelines, the administration interpreted the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) of 2022 to mean that such initiatives could no longer obtain taxpayer funds.
Archery, hunter education, and wilderness safety courses, according to senior agency official Sarah Martinez, use “technically risky instruments” and thus “may not be financed under” the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which is the main source of government funding for primary and secondary schools throughout the United States.
Biden’s Hunting and Archery Bill Affect
Many schools that provide these kinds of programs, according to advocates, have already removed them from their curricula as a result of federal instructions.
According to Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the Department of Education and Secretary Cardona are deliberately misinterpreting the law in order to withdraw money from schools that choose to offer beneficial courses like hunter safety and archery.
Congress has to hold Secretary Cardona and the Department of Education accountable for breaking the word and spirit of the law by unilaterally denying America’s kids access to these essential programs as part of the Administration’s ongoing onslaught on the Second Amendment, Keane added.
According to Tommy Floyd, president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, his organization has around 1.3 million pupils registered in archery lessons from nearly 9,000 schools in 49 states.
The Department of Education, on the other hand, has doubled down on its interpretation of the BSCA, stating that it would only alter direction if a law specifically modifying the 2022 law to enable funding for shooting sports programs in schools was passed.
The BSCA, which was criticized as a “gun control” bill but promoted by supporters as a move to encourage “safer, more welcoming, and positive” schools, was approved strongly by Congress and agreed upon into law by President Biden in June 2022, following mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and a school in Uvalde, Texas.
The law included a modification to an ESEA clause that barred the use of federal education financing. That amendment forbids ESEA monies from being used to help provide any individual with a dangerous weapon or to offer “training in the use of a dangerous weapon,” but it was inserted to block ESEA financing for school resource officer training, according to the BSCA’s sponsors.
Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina; and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., presented companion measures to Green’s bill previously this month.
Democrats in the U.S., including Arizona’s Mark Kelly, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, New Mexico’s Martin Heinrich, New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan, Virginia’s Tim Kaine, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, and Montana’s Jon Tester, have all expressed their opinions regarding the Biden administration’s interpretation of the BSCA.
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