Yeah, I had a lever action BB gun when I was about ten. I used to plink tin cans with it.
And much earlier than that I had a six-shooter cap gun in a holster with a fake ammo belt. I used to practice my quick draw with it. I don’t remember if I was the Lone Ranger or Hopalong Cassidy at that stage.
Yeah, I was the Lone Ranger - showed up to school dressed like him on Halloween back in ‘62. Gun and gunbelt too. About 5 other kids did the same thing. We were all arrested and violently thrown to the ground by the police and screamed at not to move. One of us sneezed and they all shot him. Then we were strip searched - body cavity and all.
Oh, wait - that’s right - it was 1962. The school authorities and police weren’t a bunch of sissy bedwetting barking moonbats trying to prove that society is better off if 2nd graders are thrown in jail for behaving like 2nd graders.
In 1958 the biggest problems teachers reported having with students were: running in the halls, talking in class, chewing gum, getting out of place in the lunch line.
In 1988 (22 years ago) the biggest problems teachers reported having with students were: drugs, physical abuse of teachers, rape, murder, gang warfare, arson.
In 1958 kids bringing rifles to school was not uncommon. They’d hand them over to their gym teacher and later would have rifle practice - like their parents, grandparents and great grandparents did. They had rifle clubs and competition back then - even in New York City!
I maintain that this country has moved in the wrong direction. The dems and liberals maintain that we haven’t moved far enough in that direction - after all - somewhere some children are playing dodgeball, and counting the score in soccer games and those children are learning to compete and win and even learn from losing. And therefore little Johnny or Danny might get his little feelings hurt.
Personally, I think it’s better if little Johnny or Danny learn some lessons early about losing rather than grow up getting a trophy for everything and then move on out into the real world and be the first ones to get eaten!
Not only losing because they are psychologically ill equipped to compete, but also because they are nearly illiterate. I was amazed at how much my parents remembered and learned in school - and I was astounded when I saw some of the elementary school primers that their parents learned from. Today, corporations and businesses don’t even bother calling up high schools and asking them what they’re teaching their students, they just accept the fact that they have to retrain them in basic math and reading skills.