Biden Administration Is Withholding Funding From Schools With Archery and Hunting Programs

It appears that Bambi has a powerful ally in the White House.

The Biden administration is interpreting language in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed last year that they say gives them the right to deny federal funds from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 for schools with hunting and archery programs.

The BCSA was passed in the wake of a mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. The legislation included an amendment to the ESEA that listed uses for federal school funds. The amendment denied funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”

The amendment could impact millions of American children.

“It’s a negative for children. As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students,” Tommy Floyd, the president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “In many communities, it’s a shooting sport, and the skills from shooting sports, that help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.”

In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona earlier this month, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) expressed concern that the agency is misinterpreting the provision which they said was included in the BSCA to withhold funds for training school safety officers.

“We were alarmed to learn recently that the Department of Education has misinterpreted the BCSA to require the defending of certain longstanding educational and enrichment programs — specifically, archery and hunter education classes — for thousands of children, who rely on these programs to develop life skills, learn firearm safety and build self-esteem,” Cornyn and Tillis wrote to Cardona.

“The Department mistakenly believes that the BSCA precludes funding these enrichment programs,” they continued. “Such an interpretation contradicts congressional intent and the text of the BSCA.”

Fox News:

The GOP lawmakers noted in the letter, which was shared with Fox News Digital, that they have heard complaints from schools with funding for shooting sport courses withheld. They added that hunting and archery programs fall “well within” the scope of activities to support safe and healthy students which the ESEA explicitly funds.

Overall, the ESEA is the primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education across the country, according to the Congressional Research Service. The BSCA earmarked an additional $1 billion for educational activities under the ESEA.

Obviously, there are some anti-gun extremists in the education department who have taken it upon themselves to wildly — and deliberately — misinterpret the clear-language wording in the bill, trying to pull a fast one over the defenders of the Second Amendment. They’ve gotten away with it so far

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) makes the glaringly obvious point that when you defund gun safety programs, it makes communities less safe — the direct opposite of what the bill was intended to do.

“Stopping hunter education courses that teach safe and responsible firearm handling makes our communities less, not more, safe and diminishes our ability to pass our nation’s cherished hunting and recreational shooting sports traditions on to the next generation,” he said.

If this doesn’t prove that the Education Department is in the hands of radicals, nothing will.