As promised earlier on the Lead Ammo ban thread, I will tell a story that I swear on a stack of Korans is true. This is precipitated by a news story of another school shooting yesterday where a kid fired a round into the ceiling of a cafeteria and then shot himself. I have told many others this story and most find it unbeleivable, and I'll bet even some of the younger members here don't realize how far and how fast we are falling. Way back in the olden days of 1969-1972 I took a gun to school twice a week. And if I didn't have my own gun, the school had a large locker full from which I could borrow one. I could bring my own ammo or the school would sell me all I needed at a very good discount. Many of my friends did the same and ther are pictures of us in the yearbooks shooting and holding guns in school. We were members of the Rifle Club and Rifle Team. There was an indoor range and we were supervised and instructed by certified NRA instructors. They had a zero tolerance gun policy. There was zero tolerance for rules or safety violations or not following the commands of the range officer. We were far from unique, for high schools across the nation had the same programs, and yet you never heard of a kid thusly involved shooting himself or his classmates. None of the guys or girls I participated with in this grew up to be criminals or murderers. In spite of the lead dust and lead styphnate primer fumes we must have inhaled, I'd say a larger percentage of us went on to college compared to the rest of the students. Compare then to now and we have to wonder what the hell has changed. Today, if your kid brings a squirt gun to class or even mentions guns, he will likely be expelled and you will be home schooling or hustling to pay tuition at a private school...if one will take him. 'Course back then we didn't spend every free minute playing shoot-up-the-Mall video games and we didn't have Ritalin for ADHD and Prozac for depression. If I had a little attention defict and my grades dropped, my Dad used the threat of "bring up those grades or forget about going hunting". I knew he meant it and it worked every time. It's amazing how many of the kids doing these school shootings were on ADHD or antidepressant drugs. The kid at Virginia Tech is a recent example. The NRA briefly touched on this drug/mass murder connection years ago but strangly did not pursue it. We are now eight months from a choice of one of three liberals for the White House job. The person who swears to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" may well do everything they can to gut the Second Amendment. Why is that not an impeachable offense? I'd much rather talk about L.C Smiths, or Damascus loads, but if we allow this to go on we may not even be allowed to do that. Keith
