Texas kids given Winnie-the-Pooh books to teach them what to do in a shooting

Texas schoolchildren are being given Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon books to teach them what to do in the event of a school shooting.

The Stay Safe book, produced by a law enforcement consulting firm in Houston, has been given to children as young as four and teaches them to “run, hide, fight” if a gunman enters their building.

It says: “If it is safe to get away, we should RUN like Rabbit instead of stay … If danger is near, do not fear, HIDE like Pooh does until the police appear.”

With images of Kanga and baby Roo wearing boxing gloves, it adds: “If danger finds us, don’t stay, run away. If we can’t get away, we have to FIGHT with all our might.”

The book was given to children on the week of the first anniversary of Uvalde, the mass shooting in a Texas elementary school in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.

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A teacher from a Dallas elementary school of about 500 students told the Guardian she found the book “terribly disturbing”.

“I found it extremely disturbing, and was very uncomfortable with the whole contents of the book,” the anonymous teacher reportedly said.“The fact that people think it’s a better idea to put out this book to a child rather than actually take any actions to stop shootings from happening in our schools, that really bothers me. It makes me feel so angry, so disappointed. The Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom said the book illustrated the cowardice of the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas.

Texas has some of the most lax gun laws in the US. In 2021, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, enacted a law allowing Texans to carry concealed handguns in public without a license.

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