doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Taking My Gun to Public School- Twice a Week

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

On the kid in West Mobile, AL, be sure & note that he had robbed a Dairy Queen a few weeks back, was released on bond and was suspended from Davidson Highschool Wedesday for reasons unknown to the public.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Keith:
How sad and how true: I set up a gun and other militaria display for parents teachers nite when I was in junior high back in the late 50s. Many of the students brought in guns,swords helmets etc. that their parents owned and I catalogued and labeled everything as best I could at 13 years of age! We received a lot of compliments from the parents over this interesting display. I can just imagine what would happen if the students tried to do this today. I really don't want to get into politics here but I will mention that I just finished reading this book by Michael Savage and if you want a real understanding of what's driving the loonyness were all seeing in our Country today I'd suggest all members get a copy and read it.
Jim

I am not posting to argue with your statement;however, I would like to note that,at the beginning of my teaching career, things were not so nice.From 1965 to 1969,I taught in the public school system of Portsmouth,Va.We had a number of student assualts on teachers and I had one on me.Most of the time,guns were not involved. But, sometimes they were.To the point that some principals and assistant principals were armed. I remember one principal, after school hours, being assaulted and firing down the hall at them.Another time, afer a football game,resulted in the police having to shoot and kill a "student" who had turned into a public meanace.Perhaps it is worse now,but in the last years of my career, when I was trying to teach adults in classes in the public school systems,I was approached and threatened on many occasions by very young boys and I believe that they meant it. So,my thought is that teen violence is not new. Ever seen "West Side Story"?

William is right. I went through school in the 50s and 60s and although there was not so much violence at my school, there were rougher schools in the area that the students were a bit tougher. But, back then kids could be sent to a Boys Industrial School, or reform school. Now they don't even get paddlings. My dad was a gym teacher and a coach for many years. My next door neighbor was the same. Students didn't smart off to them. And I didn't look at my gym, woodshop or some of my other teachers sideways, either. Beatings were brutal. It didn't take long to learn not to screw around with certain people. And if you went home with your butt bruised from a paddling, mommy didn't threaten to sue somebody. You got it twice as bad when you got home. Then again, now we call our military- heroes. Back then you were spit on and harrassed. I had a stewardess drop a hot pot of coffee in my lap, on a plane, when I was traveling in my Navy whites. I knew it was intentional. Times have changed. But not everything is for the worse. And not everything is for the better.

Well, I guess it depends on your perspective, Keith. The "olden days" of 69-72 were hardly the olden days for me. We tend to look back at "golden years" but at the time, to the general public, they were not the golden years. As the antis thinned our numbers, it's now far better gunning than it was with a blind on every pond and point.

Sure, I can look back to my one-room school with two-holer outhouses for the boys and girls, when I took my .22 Mossberg and ran my trap-line coming home from school. Those communities are healthier and happier now, the kids getting decent educations, not confined to a life in fishing boats.

You don't have to wonder about what has changed: everything. In the olden days you mentioned, my children learned on TV of escape velocities and Keplerian ellipses of the US space program, politics, Vietnam and Viet Cong, and now we share instantaenous exchanges here with our doublegun members everywhere.

It doesn't get any better than now for those of here, generally speaking. Looking back, living on our memories, is to my mind self-defeating. We're not the same persons we were then, it's not the same world. Only through acts of love, creativity and participatiion are we alive and burning to the end.

Circa 1978, or so, I duck hunted with a group of friends, including my high school history teacher, before school in the morning. If we got birds, the cooks would put them in the 'fridge for us. I remember the principle interupting one of my classes one fall day, and calling me out into the hall-everyone assumed I was in deep doo-doo. He asked if we got any ducks that morning, and noted that my friends mother's station wagon was parked in the lot with a duck boat hanging out the tailgate-he wanted me to run out to the parking lot, BRING OUR SHOTGUNS INTO THE BUILDING, and lock them in my locker, until it was time to go home.
The world was a smaller place back then. Said principle worked in the summer for friend's father, selling Ely Lilly lawn and garden products. He knew all of our names, since we all worked summers helping set up displays in home and garden stores. All of us considered it a huge privilege to hunt before and after school.
We never screwed it up. But, that said, I don't know a single kid today that wishes he could go to bed at 9:00 to get up at 4:00 to harass the local mallard population with a history teacher in plain sight. I must be getting old.
Best,
Ted

I can remember taking my model 61 22LR to School in Davis, California in 1972 or so, I took it to the office and left it there until after school. It did not seem like an odd thing to do.

THIS MIGHT OFFER A RAY OF HOPE IN THE ANTI-GUN POLITICALLY CORRECT WORLD THAT WE LIVE IN TODAY. My daughter teaches third grade at a local elementary school. Every year when their history class gets to the American Civil War I go to her school and give the kids a talk on that period. I have done this every year for about the last fifteen.

Yesterday was the day for this year. Generally I do it for her class & one or two more. Yesterday it was for the entire third grade including the handicapped students totalling about 250. Theb school lets me bring my weapons: Enfield & Springfield Muskets, Colt Army & Navy Revolvers, a Spencer & a Burnside Carbine, Duelling Pistols & a variety of edged weapons: swords, Bowie knives, etc. I always lead off with admonitions about the handling of weapons, gun safety and the requirement of the presence of a responsible adult. I explain what each weapon or accoutrament is, who used it and how it was used. I intersperse my talk with exerpts from Ken Burns "Civil War" and let Shelby Foote exterpolate on what's going on in each period. I close letting the kids use my metal detector to find bullets & buttons in a box of sand so as to show them that we can still find artifacts from that period & let them speak their stories to us.

In April of each year my daughter (who has been "Teacher of the Year" several times) has been able to arrange a field trip to Charleston, SC (@ 100 miles away). Her school being in a somewhat lower middle class area, a number of her kids have never seen the ocean. We usually visit the aquarium and then board a catamaran for a trip out to Morris Island, the site of Battery Wagner (GLORY), stop off at Fort Sumter and wind up at Fort Moultrie. It's always quite a day! They take me along as an un-paid historian (ballast).

I guess it's too late to be brief, but these 8 & 9 year olds are fascinated by the guns & swords and the cannons, uniforms, flags, etc. at the forts. Ten years or so from now these will be our college freshmen and will know something of our Nation's History and the part played in it by weapons. I have never heard of a single one of her kids ever getting into trouble with a gun.

Best Regards, George

My first project in shop class was a gun rack - what do you think the chances of that happing today?