PragerU’s CEO is right that America’s youth are being short-changed when schools treat personal finance like an afterthought, but the stakes run deeper than credit scores and retirement accounts. When young people never learn how to earn, save, and invest, they become easy prey for the same political class that wants to disarm them. A generation raised on “spend now, pay later” is far more likely to accept the false promise that government will take care of them—provided they surrender the tools of self-defense. Financial literacy, in other words, is upstream of the Second Amendment; it’s the mindset that says, “I can secure my own future, so I can secure my own safety.”

The timing of this message is no accident. As inflation eats paychecks and cities slash police budgets, the ability to protect one’s family increasingly falls to the individual. Yet the same voices that dismiss financial education also push “common-sense” gun laws that treat law-abiding citizens like children. Teaching kids how compound interest works is the first step toward teaching them how the Bill of Rights works: both require personal responsibility, delayed gratification, and the courage to say no to easy answers. A financially literate 18-year-old is far more likely to see through the bait-and-switch of “buy now, ban guns later.”

For the 2A community, the takeaway is clear—economic ignorance is a gateway issue. When young voters understand that every dollar printed devalues their savings and every regulation adds friction to their future businesses, they’re less susceptible to the emotional appeals that frame gun ownership as a threat rather than a safeguard. PragerU’s push for financial literacy isn’t just about money; it’s about cultivating the independence that makes constitutional rights meaningful instead of theoretical.