Great "First Time" for youth - sad discussion at the end.

[NAK]

I have been seeing a very lovely lady for the several years. She is younger than I am and had not been exposed to firearms before we met (was actually somewhat anti). Well, she is definitely a convert now. Loves to shoot, has double my ammo bill, and I even bought her a Beretta for sporting clays.

Her older daughter had expressed an interest in learning to shoot some time ago. He mom and I have discussed this several times and we recently decided she was ready. Yesterday, I took my range bag and a couple of rifles over. We spent 2 hours in front of the fireplace discussing safety and learning about firearms. After lunch, we headed to a local indoor range for her first time shooting. She had a BLAST .

She went through 200 rounds of .22, a box of .223, and 1 .40 round (hey, I warned her, but she wanted to try it). She was smiling ear to ear the whole time. Not a single naughty muzzle sweep and only a couple of reminders of trigger discipline.

All the way home, she talked about wanting to try shooting clays and asked questions about hunting.

After showing the targets to her mom and sister and talking MPH for a while, her mom and I had to have one of the worst discussions I have ever had with a young shooter...one that my parents never dreamed about having with me...a talk that was not necessary 10 years ago when my daughter was learning to shoot...the one about how she could get expelled for talking about, writing about, or taking pictures of guns, shooting, or hunting at school.

Now just how was I supposed to justify the reasoning be hind this. Her mom and I shoot a couple of times per month. She knows that I go to shooting events routinely with customers and vendors, she is excited about it and wants to learn more; but somehow, society says it is unacceptable behavior, at school, to discuss something as ingrained in our heritage as guns and hunting.

 

[MachIVshooter]

society says it is unacceptable behavior, at school, to discuss something as ingrained in our heritage as guns and hunting.

Disgusting, isn't it?

Not much over a decade ago, I was still in school and had a dummy .50 BMG keychain attached to my book bag. It was never a problem.

My freshman year, I did development of firearm cartridges as my big history class project. Had a poster board with percussion caps, cross sectioned brass, bullets, primers, loose powder, etc. Got an A-.

Algebra teacher was a former marine and avid hunter. We talked guns and hunting all the time.

 

[Officers'Wife]

Hi Nak,

I feel your pain but in schools the powers that be go under the assumtion if a student talks about firearms s/he must be planning a Columbine scene. Your g/f was just being a good parent.

Selena

 

[siglite]

It's disgusting to me as well, but I've had to have the same talk with my 10 y/o son. Schools here aren't as ridiculous as some other states, but you never know when some bedwetting liberal parent will take a discussion among kids about different cartridges, their uses, and power as a "terroristic threat."

I remember those discussions in school. .243 vs. .3006. Talking about recoil of dad's infamous 12ga. Blowing up a soda can with a .45.

Now, you never know how some idiot will react.

 

[woodybrighton]

in the uk my state school had an armory 30 .303 couple of bren guns some .22s etc.
bonkers situation a child under adult supervision can't talk about shooting legitimately and safely weird

 

[armedandsafe]

I talk to my kids on the bus about shooting, occasionaly. They have to bring it up, but they all know I shoot and teach. I get more comments on my Gadsden Flag patch than my Dan Wesson patch on my jacket.

Pops

 

[Arkie]

It seems like they had a good time and I do hope they keep it up there new found hobby.

Congrats on showing them a new sport



It is pretty sad these days in school that you can get expelled from school for just drawing a cartoon picture of a gun.

I remember that one time when I was in school we had a guy bring in a shotgun that he got for Christmas for Show-n-tell. No one screamed, ran for the door, or called the police.

You could look in the back window of almost all the trucks and they all had gun racks with rifles. No one bothered them.

 

[bogie]

When I design a match shirt, I try to make sure that there are no pictures of Evil Rifles on them, so that if a kid does well, he or she might have a chance of wearing it to school.

 

[Snapping Twig]

My how times have changed!

When I was in high school, someone living in the neighborhood cast and gave me a .54 cal Minne Ball. I carried it in my pocket like a good luck charm for quite a while. This was just the bullet, no case or powder mind you.

I suppose by today's standards, I'd get a vacation at "stoney lonesome" until my re-education was complete.

Sad indeed.

 

[CB900F]

Fella's;

Yup, the high school I went to was public and had an armory. While in school, in class, I was taught to shoot in the school 50 foot range.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Break the NEA and save the USA

900F

 

[BlindJustice]

THe gun dealer I know mentioned on a recent trip to Tacoma WA
he was standing in line with a friend for a movie. The cnversation turned
to firearms. The people behind them in line made it a point to back away
I suppose in fear. sheeish some people's kids.

 

[Nolo]

I was coming back from Texas, on the bus from the airport to our car when I started talking about what I had seen in a gun shop in Texas. My dad told me "let's talk about that later." It made me mad. I had had a bad day so far that day anyway, and him saying that made me think he was being ridiculous. But he was right to try and quiet me, unfortunately. I wasn't even inside the airport, but it was still possible for something stupid to happen.
My school is relatively tolerant of the small stuff, like drawings and talking about guns, but I still got arrested last year for accidentally having a knife in my bookbag (it was the worst stroke of bad luck I've ever had, the only time I've ever brought a knife to school and the only time I've ever been searched on the same day). This sort of thing has to stop, or else we will lose our 2A rights.

 

[BridgeWalker]

My daughter said "gun" today for the first time. I got home from the range a little while ago and was fiddling with the bolt on my shotgun, trying to sort out a failure to chamber properly. She pointed and said "gun". I was terribly excited, and absolutely terrified. Who knows what will happen the first time she tells a nursery school teacher about mama's gun.

 

[oklahoma caveman]

when i was in high school if we got caught with a gun we were told to take it home. heck it was even in the school handbook that we could carry a knife with a 4 1/2 in blade. that was 4 years ago. now they have a school skeet team. but the teacher cant carry the guns in the school truck. the students have to carry the gun. how ridiculous is that

 

[EZ CZ75]

We still have a shooting range in the high school here. It is still in use. Lead bullets only, though.

 

[alucard0822]

I graduated from public high school back in 97, in Howard county MD, a fairly liberal area. I really didn't care about most of the "unwritten" school policies, and got in trouble as a result fairly frequently. I often talked about my involvement on a youth rifle team, shooting and guns in general. My final project for my AP politics class was "gun control and the re-education of America", which I both recieved an A+ and an hour grilling from the principal for writing, I even made a ceramic thermos of a 308 round in art class, (the teacher thought it was neat, but had no idea what it was, "why did you carve7.62 nato 68 in the bottom?"). It seemed every teacher, and other kid that I didn't get along with was out to get me for 12 years, just for expressing myself and my love for an extra curricular hobby. Thankfully my dad was wise to the game, and helped me out, on one occasion I had to run out of school to call him and help me to "discuss" why I hadn't signed a schoolwide "mandatory agreement" to refrain from "on or off campus alcohol and drug abuse, and use of firearms and other weapons while a student at CHS", I told the teacher who handed it out that I was a minor, and therefore I had to show any document to my parents and they would decide to sign it or discuss it. I was immediately sent to the principal's office, told to sign it, I asked to call my parents he refused, I refused to sign it he told me I was to be in-school suspended until I signed it, and if I didn't sign it by 5:00 when he left, I was to go home, and not come back without it signed. I got up, said nothing and ran out the door, and double backed as the principal and der kommandant (our rather nasty in school officer) went looking, I made it to the pay phones, called my dad, and 5 minutes later met him at the door, and we walked back into the office together. After my dad was told by the principal why his involvement was not needed for his 16 year old son to sign the paper, my dad asked me to "please wait outside, and close the door", the next 30 minutes involved some of the most profane words a 20 year Navy vet could muster. I did not have to sign the paper, but it took filing an official grievance with the board of ED and a lawyer to serve papers to the principal for me to be allowed to return to school. My dad taught me a lot of things, but mostly he taught me to stand up for what I belived in, if I was right he would be proud, if I was wrong, he would personally make sure I remembered why, and for a long time, but most importantly he taught me to tell the difference. It is indeed the hard and difficult road of being true to yourself, but It is one that gets easier, the more people that stand up and don't hide their rights.

 

[Zedicus]

This is why my Parents Home-schooled me.

And they went through all of the legality's to get licensed as a small private school to do it due to some BS regulations a county legislator had snuck in due to the spike the area saw in homschooling due to such absurd school policy's being installed.

Heck the College Professor we had who oversaw our home school even referred to what schools were teaching as "Mindless Garbage" and you didn't want to get him going on what was passing as US History at the time.

and being this was back in the 80's I can only imagine how much worse it has gotten since.

 

[Green Lantern]

When I was in 10th grade back in 1998, the history teacher brought a Colt SAA 'clone' in when we got to the 'Wild West' section, and let us pass it around. He had the blessing of the principal and resource officer, so all was good. I had not been shooting long myself, but one of the guns I cut my teeth on was my Great-Uncle's .22 Ruger SAA clone. Thus, it was quite amusing to watch how most of the class expressed shock at just how HEAVY the gun was!

 

[FieroCDSP]

I have no doubt that my one-page drawings of cartoonish marines battling it out with cartoonish Klan members, or various aircraft bombing Saddam Hussein, or numerous doodles I've sketched in my lack-of-artistic-tallent way would have gotten me expelled and hauled out in hand-cuffs in todays schools. I only graduated in '98, and never owned or had access to any guns.

I would have been the perfect kill-crazy, psychopathic role-model, according to todays standards. Few friends, hyperactive, lots of potential but not applying myself, picked on by the other students most of my life.....

The thing that ticks me off the most abot today's schools is that they panic at the mere thought of a gun (even in mere discussion), they prohibit artistic tallent or imaginitive thought, they have a sense of justice that makes the Inquisition look like modern court standards (bully hits wimp without provocation, wimp gets suspended. Yes, I was that wimp), AND THEY WONDER WHY THE KIDS LEARN NOTHING!!!

Sickening.

 

[TexasRifleman]

.the one about how she could get expelled for talking about, writing about, or taking pictures of guns, shooting, or hunting at school.

I understand the worry about this, but you live in Ft Worth. There are still places where this isn't seen as a mental illness.

My 12 year old talks about hunting all the time with folks at school. His principal has a son that is just starting to hunt also.

So remember that these incidents we read about do happen, but they are in such a small percentage of schools you have to wonder if there really is something to worry about or is are we just being too paranoid.

A lot of the schools in the Ft Worth area still have 4-H programs which include target shooting as one of the activities.

Do you know firsthand that the school she attends actually has some kind of policy concerning this? Have they actually expelled any students? Be careful not to put a fear into your daughter of something that might not even exist.

 

[nwilliams]

All I can say is I'm glad I'm not a student in todays world:banghead:

 

[Tokugawa]

I have great respect for the posters who have stood up to the "system'. I think it is admirable. To evade and cover up is perhaps practical for a while, but it is a lie to oneself and in the end may not be the best solution.
I say confront the PC bastards head on and damn the consequences. Right, truth ,and justice are on our side. Remember our Founding Fathers who risked all on our behalf. They risked torture and death for their beliefs-we are to cower in the face of a chicken**** school board? I am sick to death hearing about
"thought crime" -this Orwellian crap has to stop, and it will not stop if we refuse to confront it.

 

[auschip]

I understand the worry about this, but you live in Ft Worth. There are still places where this isn't seen as a mental illness.

My 12 year old talks about hunting all the time with folks at school. His principal has a son that is just starting to hunt also.

So remember that these incidents we read about do happen, but they are in such a small percentage of schools you have to wonder if there really is something to worry about or is are we just being too paranoid.

A lot of the schools in the Ft Worth area still have 4-H programs which include target shooting as one of the activities.

Do you know firsthand that the school she attends actually has some kind of policy concerning this? Have they actually expelled any students? Be careful not to put a fear into your daughter of something that might not even exist.

I wonder how much a problem it is as well. My wife is a teacher, and she said several of her students have written stories about hunting. They even had a discussion of how I enjoy hunting. No lynch mobs or expulsions.

 

[shootemup]

In my hometown in rural West Tennessee back in the late '70s and early '80s, it was common for students to carry shotguns and rifles in ther cars and trucks for an early morning or after-school hunt.

A couple of buddies and I would sometimes meet in the woods during squirrel season, hunt on the way to school, and drop our game and long guns at the custodian's home (on school property). During the day he would clean and freeze our game. We'd give him a squirrel or two, and hunt on the way home after school.

Couldn't do that now. What a shame.

 

[ABBOBERG]

Heck, I've got all you guys beat. In 1975 I was in the 9th grade and actually had the metal shop teacher help me build and weld the bolt for a .22 single-shot pistol I was building at home. When I had finished the gun, I brought it to school to show the teacher and classmates. Everyone seemed impressed.

Today, it would have been national news.