If the call ever comes, Twin Falls Police Sgt. Mark Marvin will be ready.

Videotapes, stickers and even "some comic-book things" starring the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle are stored away, awaiting the next group of Boy Scouts who will hear the character's spiel on gun safety.

Marvin can just about recite the whole presentation by heart. But he rarely gives it these days, ever since the public schools let him know five years ago that they couldn't find time to fit him in.

"In recent years, there's been so many different mandates placed upon the schools," he said. "They almost have to be these kids' parents now. They don't have that free time like they used to."

Outreach efforts such as the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program - applauded by the National Safety Council and Association of American Educators, and endorsed in 1996 by the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Phil Batt - helped lower child deaths due to unintentional firearm injuries from 247 in 1987 to 63 in 2004, according to numbers from Safe Kids USA. But the No Child Left Behind Act and other laws have clogged school schedules, Marvin said, leaving little to no time for other educational programs.

In Idaho, where guns are plentiful and children are just as curious, that's a problem, Marvin said. The state sees few deaths - according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, only one child under the age of 14 was killed by accidental discharge of a firearm in 2006, and only four intentionally committed suicide with one. But the potential for accidents is still there, Marvin said, and in the absence of the school program, he's not sure where safety education is coming from.

"I'd like to think they're getting that from their parents, but I don't see that kind of involvement where I shoot," he said.

Ted Popplewell, elementary programs director for the Twin Falls School District, said the situation is one that tears him in two. Gun safety, he said, is one of many programs he'd love to see in the city's schools. And while federal mandates have forced schools to cut outside programs and assemblies, the bigger problem may be the sheer volume of requests they get - 150 alone that one principal counted up one year, he said.

"How do you say yes to one and then no to all the others?" Popplewell said. "It does play on you."

Some programs still work with local school districts, such as the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's hunter education classes. The classes aren't integrated into some local schools like they once were, regional conservation educator Kelton Hatch said. But the agency has continued to offer them after-hours at most schools except Twin Falls, as well as at its regional office in Jerome. Between 2,300 and 3,000 students ages 9 and up graduate from the program every year.

Hatch credited the classes with a dramatic drop in accidents while hunters are out in the field. But people could always do better, he said.

"You still hear of accidents happening in people's homes, and I hate to see those happening," he said. "If there's anything I can do to protect my children, I do it."

That's something Magic Valley Safe Kids Coalition Director Page Geske wants to hear more often. Her organization passes out gun locks along with bike helmets and child car seats. Four years ago, she couldn't give them out fast enough. Today, she said, only the occasional parent stops by seeking one.

Idaho, she said, seems to have a "much more lax posture" in regards to gun safety than Virginia, where she was raised by parents who hunted. Along with the gun locks, she advises parents to keep gun accessories stored in separate locations and said her coalition is searching for a parent advocate to help promote gun safety education in the area.

Perhaps, Marvin said, the key to parent-led education is presenting firearms as more of a tool than a forbidden, exciting object. In his 30 years as a policeman, he said, his children became used to seeing him with guns and learned how to safely use them, hunting and entering shooting competitions when they grew up.

"I have a gun belt that I wear when I go to work, just like a carpenter has a tool belt," Marvin said. "I think that's the way they've always looked at it."

Nate Poppino can be reached at 735-2337 or npoppino@magicvalley.com.

How you can help The Magic Valley Safe Kids Coalition is seeking a volunteer to become a gun safety parent advocate. For more information: 733-2433 Idaho Department of Fish and Game hunter education class schedules can be viewed online at http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/cms/education/hunter_ed/