Posted on 04/19/2018 11:50:18 AM PDT by marktwain
School shooting teams were common before 1970. They suffered enormous decline with the war on guns from 1970 to 2000. Now they are making a comeback. The numbers are growing, and even the Associated Press is noticing. From detroitnews.com:
Dahlonega, Ga. – Their classmates took to the streets to protest gun violence and to implore adults to restrict guns, seeming to forecast a generational shift in attitudes toward the Second Amendment. But at high school and college gun ranges around the country, these teens and young adults gather to practice shooting and talk about the positive influence firearms have had on their lives.Shooting is a lifetime sport the practitioners find accessible into old age. The interesting thing about the AP article is that it mentions the many positive aspects of the shooting sports.
What do they say they learn? Patience. Discipline. Responsibility.
“I’ve never gone out onto a range and not learned something new,” said Lydia Odlin, a 21-year-old member of the Georgia Southern University rifle team.
There are an estimated 5,000 teams at high schools and universities around the country, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and their popularity hasn’t waned despite criticism after it emerged that the gunman who killed 14 students and three staff members at a Florida high school had been a member of the JROTC rifle team. The youths who are involved, coaches and parents say there’s an enormous difference between someone bent on violence and school gun clubs that focus on safety and teach skills that make navigating life’s hardships easier.
"We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world..."It may not be a coincidence that support for school shooting teams declined in the nuclear age. The control of nuclear weapons seemed to diminish the necessity for a nation of riflemen. We have learned differently. Experience in wars from Korea to Afghanistan have validated the need for the rifleman on the field of combat.
This program can only be thought of as a positive. ALL youth should be given an introductory course in the the care, feeding, correct methods of handling and proper respect for the potential that is inherent in all firearms.
The purpose of this course should be to identify and help weed out those who have poor attitudes about what a handgun should be used for, and those of such habitual carelessness, that these two general groups should NEVER be given access to a handgun while unsupervised.
Then there shall still be a group of unknown size, who for whatever superstitious reason, cannot bring themselves to learn even the rudiments of proper gun handling. For them, teaching in how to avoid, evade, escape or confront a bearer of a weapon carried with malice intent would be a compulsory course, and in addition, they should have their name and Social Security number tattooed on their bodies for easier identification after falling victim to such an assault.
Yep. I was peripherally involved in that sad process. It was a perfect storm: increased regulation in terms of ventilation and lead exposure meant costly upgrades to existing indoor ranges, the expense of the sport in general (competition smallbore rifles ain't cheap, as well as the jackets and the ammunition) meant that it was first on the chopping block when Title IX mandated a large-scale reallocation of school sports funds, and shortage of qualified instructors; all of these together served to shut down our local school range. Even college teams felt the pressure.
Our team went over to the Junior NRA to find competition space, and the funding was supplied by donors and the customary car wash / bake sale black market economy. Not everyone had parents that dedicated, and the school involvement simply withered away altogether, or pretty much so. Soon, no more school teams to shoot against.
The problem as I see it was that competition wasn't really the point in all this, and the article appears to agree, it was merely a means to promote the activity. So was the continuation of an American heritage. But the real value was in safety education, which is a need that has never gone away. This is going to be a tough sale in the face of the virulently anti-gun teachers' unions and professional administrators.
All young children should be taught DON’T TOUCH! TELL AN ADULT!
Older children ought to be familiar with enough types of firearms to be able to unload and render them safe.
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