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Things Haven't Always Been This Way
Townhall.com ^ | July 17, 2019 | Walter E. Williams

Posted on 07/17/2019 4:01:18 AM PDT by Kaslin

Here's a suggestion. How about setting up some high school rifle clubs? Students would bring their own rifles to school, store them with the team coach and, after classes, collect them for practice. You say: "Williams, you must be crazy! To prevent gun violence, we must do all we can to keep guns out of the hands of kids."

There's a problem with this reasoning. Prior to the 1960s, many public high schools had shooting clubs. In New York City, shooting clubs were started at Boys, Curtis, Commercial, Manual Training and Stuyvesant high schools. Students carried their rifles to school on the subway and turned them over to their homeroom or gym teacher. Rifles were retrieved after school for target practice. In some rural areas across the nation, there was a long tradition of high school students hunting before classes and storing their rifles in the trunks of their cars, parked on school grounds, during the school day.

Today, any school principal permitting rifles clubs or allowing rifles on school grounds would be fired, possibly imprisoned. Here's my question: Have .30-30 caliber Winchesters and .22 caliber rifles changed to become more violent? If indeed rifles have become more violent, what can be done to pacify them? Will rifle psychiatric counseling help to stop these weapons from committing gun violence? You say: "Williams, that's lunacy! Guns are inanimate objects and as such cannot act." You're right. Only people can act. That means that we ought to abandon the phrase "gun violence" because guns cannot act and hence cannot be violent.

If guns haven't changed, it must be that people, and what's considered acceptable behavior, have changed. Violence with guns is just a tiny example. What explains a lot of what we see today is growing cultural deviancy. Twenty-nine percent of white children, 53% of Hispanic children and 73% of black children are born to unmarried women. The absence of a husband and father in the home is a strong contributing factor to poverty, school failure, crime, drug abuse, emotional disturbance and a host of other social problems. By the way, the low marriage rate among blacks is relatively new. Census data shows that a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married than white adults from 1890 to 1940. According to the 1938 Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, that year only 11% of black children and 3% of white children were born to unwed mothers.

In 1954, I graduated from Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High School, the city's poorest school. During those days, there were no school policemen. Today, close to 400 police patrol Philadelphia schools. According to federal education data, in the 2015-16 school year, 5.8% of the nation's 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student. Almost 10% were threatened with injury.

Other forms of cultural deviancy are found in the music accepted today that advocates murder, rape and other vile acts. In previous generations, people were held responsible for their behavior. Today, society at large pays for irresponsible behavior. Years ago, there was little tolerance for the crude behavior and language that are accepted today. To see men sitting while a woman was standing on a public conveyance was once unthinkable. Children addressing adults by their first name, and their use of foul language in the presence of, and often to, teachers and other adults was unacceptable.

A society's first line of defense is not the law or the criminal justice system but customs, traditions and moral values. These behavioral norms, mostly imparted by example, word-of-mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. Police and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Today's true tragedy is that most people think what we see today has always been so. As such, today's Americans accept behavior that our parents and grandparents never would have accepted.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: banglist; children; teenagers
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1 posted on 07/17/2019 4:01:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Clay pigeon has become a very popular shooting club in many Michigan high schools.


2 posted on 07/17/2019 4:06:28 AM PDT by healy61
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To: Kaslin

North Dakota state wide high school clay target (shotgun) league:

http://ndclaytarget.com


3 posted on 07/17/2019 4:16:48 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Trump 2020 - Re-Elect the M*****F***er!)
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To: Kaslin

Back then, there was a rifle team with a range in the sub-basement of my NYC private high school.


4 posted on 07/17/2019 4:19:25 AM PDT by Roccus (When you talk to a politician...ANY politician...always say, "Remember Ceausescu")
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To: Kaslin

Of course Mr. Williams is right on what he discusses. However, I thought he was going to talk about the ‘tone’ of the Democrat Party, of which I would have disagreed. They are EXACTLY who they’ve always been, at least for the past 50 years. The difference is that between social media and Trump’s use of social media, the Democrats simply cannot hide their HATRED for this country.

I remember when supposedly conservative, or at least supposedly moderate, Democrats would campaign in rural districts. They were as pro-American, pro-gun, pro-life, pro-military as anyone could ever ask for. And their pro-American, pro-gun, pro-life and pro-military voters rewarded those Democrats with seats for life (after all, how could any Republican top that). But when they were in DC, and when they voted, they simply took the leftist party line...all that other stuff was left in the district. The voters back home, of course, could have found this out, but 90% of voters rely on the media to keep them ‘informed’, and the media knew enough to play along with this charade, and of course, social media didn’t exist.

I realize that some people may be put off by what Trump’s doing, but he’s no longer letting Steny Hoyer or whatever white, male, non-threatening, face the Dems want to put on their party represent them - he’s making THE DEMOCRAT BASE, for the first time, be the face of the party. And he should, because that’s where the energy is and that’s the part that is about to take over.


5 posted on 07/17/2019 4:30:42 AM PDT by BobL (I eat at McDonald's and shop at Walmart - I just don't tell anyone.)
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To: Kaslin

I grew up in the same time period. There was a Catholic High School that had ROTC. Once a month, all the students took their rifles home. I suspect they were probably ‘drill’ rifles and could not be fired, but who knew.

A guy that lived down the street from me used to ride home on a public bus, then march down our street, in uniform, rifle over his shoulder, with books in his other hand. I can’t imagine any of that happening today. He’d for sure have the police called on him, plus any number of idiots offering verbal abuse or rocks.

Of course, in my childhood, every house also had the person called ‘Dad’ there. Somebody harassing a kid in a ROTC uniform would have been ‘spoken to’ by mine and the other Dads in the neighborhood. I suspect the harassment would have ended rather quickly.


6 posted on 07/17/2019 4:31:55 AM PDT by I cannot think of a name
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To: Roccus; Kaslin
In the 50s, I was in grade school in Denver and my favorite day of the week was Wednesday when we got to leave school early to go to the firing range at the National Guard Armory.

I earned my first gun, a .22 cal Winchester Rifle by selling subscriptions to Boy's Life Magazine - it came in the mail.

7 posted on 07/17/2019 4:34:04 AM PDT by Baynative ("A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." - John Barrymore)
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To: Kaslin

Back in the early ‘60s my friends and I would bring our shotguns to school during hunting season and keep them in the truck of our cars. After school we would hunt pheasants in the fields behind the school. No one ever felt threatened or had the need to find a “safe space”. Gone are those days...


8 posted on 07/17/2019 4:35:36 AM PDT by Russ (I)
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To: Kaslin

Hell, we had rifle/club/teams in Chicago up until the 90’s!
Then along came the usual anti-gun administrative types and put an end to it. Now the students channel their marksmanship urges into shooting each other.


9 posted on 07/17/2019 5:12:59 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Kaslin
You cannot think of putting a rifle in the hands of a juvenile (or an adult, even) who has not been trained (not "taught") to conduct themselves according to commonly established sane, stable, and safe standards.

Not having done that by misplaced theories condemning corporal punishment rather than administering it at levels of severity concomitant with the child's ability to bear it, these uninhibited uncontrollable wild teens are likely to suddenly graduate to a level of wildness that only lethal force will stop them.

And that is why now the grade-school teacher's ruler or the middle school principal's paddle has had to be replaced by the mayhem-restraining tools of the LEO walking the halls.

Only fools ignore the Biblical solution to unacceptabke behavior, starting with the infant experiencing pain when the word "No" no longer works by itself.

A sampling from the Book of Proverbs, the counsel of the very wisest king ever:

10:13 In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding.

13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

14:3 In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.

22:8 He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.

22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.

23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

26:3 A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back.

29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.

The failure to properly apply corporal discipline judiciously to the growing child is very likely not only to allow it to ruin its life and yours, but failing to do it is likely to send that one not only to a broken, drugged body and death, but beyond it eternal Hell as well, and you to a remorseful ending of your days.

Do not listen to the educational fool pseudopsychologists, pushing you as a parent to be co-dependents of the child's learned fruits of undisciplined misbehavior, carried into and through adult life, making the person a burden to others.

Handing teenagers guns is putting the power of life and death in their hands. Have today's schools made them ready ready for it? Are you?

10 posted on 07/17/2019 5:20:00 AM PDT by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: Kaslin
And untethered 22s at Coney Island.

ML/NJ

11 posted on 07/17/2019 5:21:18 AM PDT by ml/nj
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To: Kaslin

We had an indoor shooting range under the bleachers in Phoenix when I went to high school in 69. I was in ROTC and we practiced with M-16s. It was fun. Boy have times changed. Not for the better I might add.


12 posted on 07/17/2019 5:26:56 AM PDT by HighSierra5
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To: Kaslin

Lets take it to the extreme of the left...ALL students must have gun safety training classes. This to protect the children if they encounter a firearm later in life.


13 posted on 07/17/2019 5:27:25 AM PDT by ThePatriotsFlag (We are getting even more than we voted for.)
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To: I cannot think of a name

In the early 1980s, I was in the ROTC Precision Drill Team. We drilled, and did tricks, with de-milled M-1 Garands (lead poured down the barrel) and bayonets.

The first time I brought my “show” rifle back to my dorm (we polished and waxed them the night before performances. . .) somebody complained about “a gun in the dorm”. . .

School cop knock on my door. “ROTC ? Drill Team ?” Yep. OK, no problem. . . .

Complainer still threw a fit. . .


14 posted on 07/17/2019 5:38:12 AM PDT by Salgak (You're in Strange Hands with Tom Stranger. . . .)
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To: Kaslin

When I was in high school, my metal shop project was a complete, working scale model of a cannon complete with cannon balls.

Actually made it into the school paper and got a commendation from the principal.

The school was in a non built up area at the time so I tested it in a field just outside the gates of the school and it worked very well

Pretty sure I could not get away with that today


15 posted on 07/17/2019 5:41:11 AM PDT by rdcbn ( Referential)
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To: Kaslin

My uncle carried a rifle to school, and stored it in his locker with ammunition, in New York City in the 1960s. So did all of his rifle club teammates. Not one of them shot anyone. Walter Williams is correct that the problem is cultural, and is most definitely highly correlated with the Rise of out of wedlock births. The leftists have been attempting to destroy the bed rock institution of our culture - the family - for many decades in their quest to achieve ultimate power, and they have succeeded to a large degree. We can all see the results of this every time we watch or listen to the news.

I wonder when the American public is going to wake up to what the Left is doing. They are out to enslave this society for their own ends; They are not the benevolent and well-meaning people that they present themselves to be. I have long studied the Left, because my paternal grandfather escaped from Russia to this country in the early 1920s. The American Left is different from the Russian Left only in the language that they speak.


16 posted on 07/17/2019 6:06:33 AM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: Kaslin

In the early 60’s in Virginia my friends and I would carry our shotguns (pumps, double barrels and semi-autos in various gauages) to elementary school on the school Bus during Dove season. The only requirement was to show the bus driver (Mrs. Baker) that no shell was in the chamber (to avoid accidental discharge), and once at school we lined them up against the wall in the coat room.

After school, we’d walk home through the fields hunting doves - seldom got a dove, but it was great fun (and in retrospect - great responsibility for preteens). I recall carrying my Savage 12 gauge semi-auto with a poly-choke - it was bigger than I was and the recoil could knock me down if I wasn’t careful (which I was). There were no plugs, so I had one in the chamber and 5 in the pipe and usually a pocket full of shells. I could easily get off 6 shots in 10 seconds, so by today’s f-uped standards it was an assault weapon. None of us ever shot each other or anyone else. Sometimes I miss the 60’s.


17 posted on 07/17/2019 6:32:48 AM PDT by Drumbo ("Democracy can withstand anything except democrats." - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: ml/nj

And untethered 22s at Coney Island.


Disneyland had shooting galleries when it opened.


18 posted on 07/17/2019 6:35:55 AM PDT by hanamizu
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To: xkaydet65

PING


19 posted on 07/17/2019 6:39:37 AM PDT by Roccus (When you talk to a politician...ANY politician...always say, "Remember Ceausescu")
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To: Kaslin

Sadly, just reintroducing firearms in struction into schools would likely have catastrophic consequences. It would only take one incident. All due respect to Dr. Williams, but this reminds me of a guy that I argue with on FB...I know..... He believes that all of our ills can be solved by going back to the tax structure of the ‘70s, because that’s when he had it good.


20 posted on 07/17/2019 7:14:34 AM PDT by gundog ( Hail to the Chief, bitches!)
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