“This course isn’t pro-gun or anti-gun; we teach kids how to be safe around guns, and not to be passive bystanders,” fourth grade teacher Daniel Krestar, who teaches the course at Forest Hills Elementary School in Sidman, tells Yahoo Parenting. More than 80 percent of homeowners in the school’s Cambria County county own a gun, according to WTAJ, which profiled the local program this week.

Gun Stop was first introduced by the Cambria District Attorney’s office two decades ago, and is taught each October. In it, students in kindergarten and again in third grade are educated on what to do if they see a gun and how to engage in non-violent conflict resolution. “We wanted to teach the course because statistics showed that 80 percent of local home owners kept guns in their home,” says Krestar.

But according to Jennifer Hoppe, deputy director of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a campaign of the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, the best way to reduce gun deaths among children is to be keep the weapons out of children’s hands altogether. “It’s atrocious to put the onus of gun safety onto children — this is an adult problem,” Hoppe tells Yahoo Parenting. “Every gun that’s gotten into the hands of a child has first been under the control of an adult. A program that tries to dodge that is disingenuous.”