A federal grant from the Trump Administration’s Department of Education is earmarked for developing a national program that will provide secondary school teachers with nonpartisan, historically grounded content on the origins, legal interpretation and civic implications of the Second Amendment.
The Firearms Research Center in the University of Wyoming’s College of Law received the nearly $1 million grant to fund “Armed with Knowledge: A Nonpartisan Second Amendment Initiative,” which aims to fill a gap in contemporary civics curricula, furnishing educators with resources and tools to better understand the historical context and have modern discussions about the Second Amendment.
“The doctrinal complexity of the Second Amendment is too often obscured by divisive discourse,” University of Wyoming College of Law Professor George Mocsary, the Firearms Research Center’s director, said in a news release announcing the grant. “We seek to provide a much-needed apolitical approach to an otherwise politically charged topic, emphasizing the legal and civic origins of the right to bear arms, connecting it to the early principles of the nation’s founding and examining its evolving role, through legal interpretation, in American culture over time.”
The two-year, $908,991 grant from the Department of Education’s American History and Civics Education Program will provide educators access to primary sources, instructional videos for the classroom, and the chance to engage with scholars who hold beliefs across the spectrum through regular webinars and an in-person conference. According to FRC Executive Director Ashley Hlebinsky, the primary goals are to enhance educators’ understanding of the historical development and constitutional framework of the Second Amendment; build educators’ capacity to teach difficult constitutional topics; and expand access to primary-source resources.
“Our project will honor the nation’s 250th anniversary by allowing educators to engage with the complexity and nuance of the country’s founding documents,” Hlebinsky says. “As the nation approaches its semi-quincentennial, the ability to not only possess an intellectually rigorous grasp of constitutional text, structure, and jurisprudence, but also to respectfully discuss and debate with those who possess a range of beliefs, has never been greater.”
The initiative will be directed by the center’s staff and an advisory committee, including K-12 educators, scholars, public health experts and UW’s College of Education. The program will include an in-person educator conference for teachers from across the country, instructional video modules, webinars with bipartisan scholarly dialogue and a free digital archive of historical legal sources.
Established in 2023, the Firearms Research Center is a nonpartisan research institution with a mission to promote education, constitutional literacy and legal-historical scholarship regarding the Second Amendment. It regularly hosts conferences and webinars; provides digital learning resources to the public; publishes original research; and maintains a group of academic fellows with wide-ranging beliefs. The center also partners with law enforcement and other public health agencies to educate on firearms safety and suicide prevention.
Reactions to the grant from the gun-rights community have been largely positive.
“This is the latest move in Donald J. Trump’s agenda to protect and promote our Second Amendment rights,” the National Rifle Association posted on Facebook. “The program equips teachers with primary source documents, classroom-friendly video content and meaningful engagement with 2A scholars via webinars and an in-person conference.”
