doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com A Boy Scout rejoinder

Some of you that were bemoaning the demise of the Boy Scouts may be interested in a few observations that I have had in the last ten days here at the Whittington Center.

When I got here, there was a group of young people that were always wearing pink camo t-shirts. Some were girls some were not. They were getting instruction over the course of several days at trap skeet, 5-stand, and sporting clays. After several days, I finally passed them walking down the road and realized their t-shirts were emblazoned with Philmont Scout Ranch insignia. Obviously, there is some scouting activities coordinated with the NRA.

Today, we were up on the Blue Course shooting clays for fun, and a group of scouts headed to Philmont from Cleveland were coming out. We stopped to talk to one of the near-Eagle Scouts and his dad that had just experienced clay shooting for the first time. They were estatic about shooting shotguns. They were just hanging out at the center to acclimate to elevation for a few days before continuing to Philmont.

In any event, it looks like at least some scouts are getting into shooting. The end of scouting and life as we know it may not be imminent.

It's a brave new world. Did you show them any of your classic single shots, and offer to give vot'in pointers?

Nope. But I did hand them my Cashmore and let them swing it around a little bit and see what they thought about it. They were quite interested in gun fit because they thought it might be one of the reasons that they shot so poorly and got so bruised with the rented guns that they had. They were tall and thin people that certainly needed long LOPs.

We also directed them to the range where the 22 BPCRA national championships will begin tomorrow morning. We told them they would see the most amazing number of custom rifles anywhere on the planet.. I don't know if they went or not. But there were many people down there, sighting in and preparing for tomorrow's start of the matches.

What would you have done?

Not assumed their genders? I mean, a Supreme Court Justice told us straight out she couldn’t figure that out, how can you?

Best,
Ted

__________________________________________________________________________________
I know a dude who has dementia and the nuclear football. Any way I can get the red flag laws to work on him?

Our club supports the Boy Scouts in our area also. I don't see so many of them shooting, but they are always camping on our campgrounds and use it constantly. A couple of weeks ago there were 15 to 20 tents out on the campgrounds and it looks like they were all having a lot of fun. So good for them.

You are such a jerk Ted. But, apparently, you are a woke jerk.

I did not ask your opinion, but you continue to never disappoint. Now, report back to Stanley.

I already did it. Maybe one of those scouts will find you later and ask, a quick search shows your screen name votes lock step antigun, are you trying to trick us? What are you going to tell kids, jimmy made me do it, or bs them about, nope my stuff is exempt?

You can connect my screen name to my voting record?

That is not even a good lie. Obviously you would have done nothing. Another keyboard coward.

Great opening for your merit badge lesson.

And here, you do even less.

What did Stan tell you to post?

Have you ANYTHING constructive to say? I thought not. Just pure negativity.

Pink camo?

Always good to see new folks getting into shotgun games.

A hundred percent, and it could be their only exposure to guns as kids. Very impressionable minds, don't want to mislead them, do we.

Always best to set a good example Craig, although I have a feeling that your agenda and mine for those impressionable minds might not be the same. Unlike you, how they might vote is not something that I feel that I need to influence. Let them decide the issues themselves and focus on the guns, gun safety and fun would be my approach. I'll leave the politics to you culture warriors, I have other interests.

It should be rather simple. One side wants to defend your rights to keep and bear arms and the other side will do their best to incrementally eliminate gun ownership. They have a tremendous amount of patience and will not stop until their goals are accomplished

I simply see no need to politicize every interaction that I have, especially with kids. YMMV.

One side wants to force their personal moralities while the other wants the freedom to do their own thing.

Why not just be happy they are shooting?

Might as well add my two cents to this one.

I am an Eagle Scout and enjoyed scouting from Cub Scouts all the way through.

However, within the framework of the Boy Scouts, there is great latitude in how troops are operated.

The first troop I was drafted into, was essentially a paramilitary organization.

Lots of marching, standing at attention etc., in preparation for all of us heading into the service. Everybody who ran the troop was from World War II or Korea, and that’s how they wanted to run their troop.

But it was the 1970s, and we were in the middle of an unpopular war. Most of the scouts wanted no part of all of that drilling and standing at attention or polishing their brass.

I just wanted to have fun. Go camping. Enjoy the outdoors.
Do some backpacking, grow my hair long, just like every other 1970s kid.
I moved on to another troop like many other Young people that left that troop and I began to collect stuff. So now I have an extensive collection of Boy Scout things going all the way back to before when scouts were created.

I am sure that the World War II and Korean War and early Vietnam war vets that were operating our troop felt they were molding all of us into leaders of men.

But the turnover rate probably told the true story.

If it’s not fun, kids don’t stay involved.

We never touched any guns until we got to summer camp and then those of us who like to shoot had a ball

The troop had strict rules on showering using the buddy system, so apparently by the early 1970s, there was systemic anxiety over homosexuality or child abuse.

I Spent months of my life with one of the best men that I have ever known, who was at a minimum a devout bachelor but who also certainly never laid a hand on me. Nowadays people would say he was probably closeted. And I am grateful for all that I learned from him.

I remember much the same, and in particular, a pair of recent Army vets who went camping with us using military gear. I distinctly remember commenting that their boots did not look all that durable, but they quickly responded that Uncle Sam would happily find them another pair as fast as they wore them out. Very interesting people.

I agree Steve. There are many who know what is right for others, and are only concerned with themselves.

Quick question, you are mentoring, and the curiosity based conversation keeps turning to black guns, even though you supply classics, antiques and ammo. How do you teach these children that they are wrong?

By the way, it is none of my business about how others choose to vote. Unless, they decide to share it, and I make the decision to comment about hypocrisies as I see them. Have you noticed, closet culture warriors always seem to jump at the chance to defend the cultural warriors of their choosing?

It is so simple. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice....

I love the gotcha games Craig. I have an answer for you. Those seeking guidance on black guns can look elsewhere, I am purposely and blissfully ignorant on the subject. Not that I don't want to help, I'm just not able to . I did just pick up a stunning collection of Best guns to broker, on those I am happy to mentor and heck those kids are welcome to bring a Savage 311 or a Remington 870 along and I am delighted to advise. Same goes for the local kid heading off to the Marines, happy to work on his Turkish semi-auto for him, but to be honest, only because he is a kid. I really don't do repair outside of the scope of restoration any longer.

I certainly did notice the rise in culture warriors on the board over the years....kind of hard to miss to be honest.

You sure do jump around a lot.

I never was in the Boy Scouts or the Cub Scouts. But we always spent a week or two every summer at the nearby YMCA summer camp. I always had such a great time. That is where I shot my first gun-they had several of the Remington black and chrome nylon .22s that everyone got to shoot. That is one of the things I remember most. I ended up buying one about 20 years ago- new, and I still have it. And I still shoot it every once in a while. Great memories!!

I enjoyed scouting, as did my brothers. We were in a great troop with terrific adult leaders.

My son’s troop was not as camping and field oriented as mine was, but still all good.

I never saw negative stuff from adult leaders that may have happened in other troops, anymore than I saw anything but good from the numerous priests and nuns at my parish schools growing up.

I only have good memories of scouting and catholic schools, both help make me successful.

Exactly the same for me oc. Our son had his spare time tied up with other things, but I don't know if we would have encouraged it. The scout's values were changing, and not for the better.

I spent a week at summer camp this month helping run the rifle range. Lots of Scouts had never held a gun before. All but one ended up qualifying. 3 shots in a quarter 5 times and 5 shots in a quarter 5 times. Open sights. Also worked a little on the shotgun range. First week in Aug I’m leading our troop on a shooting outing. Mainly shotguns. I enjoy teaching young people to safely shoot.

Good going!

Do Scouts still shoot the open sights at a range of 50 ft.? We actually didn't shoot notch and post open sights, but aperture sights. The front sight was probably open, but the rear was a "peep".

I'd give a purty if I had some of my old paper targets I shot as a boy at Scout camp.

Yes, you must use open sights. The camp I was at used Ruger bolt actions with aperture front and rear. I used Winchester 67s with open sights when I was a scout in the 80s. Yes still same distance.

When I competed with roundball muzzleloaders from '84 to about 2003 the NMLRA called "notch and post" sights "open sights" (presumably because the rear notch sight is open at the top and there is no hood over the front sight) and aperture sights were not included in that classification. There is a definite advantage with aperture sights over notch and post, and usually one could not compete against the other. Both aperture, and notch and post, fell under the category "iron sights". I understand what you mean however, no problem.

There were two brands of target .22s we had at the range at camp. One was a Mossberg and I cannot remember what the other was. I fell in love with competitive shooting there.