I'm glad I was able to dredge up some nice memories. I fully realize that time marches on and I would not wish to go back to the pre-antibiotic days of my grandfather just to be able to take a gun to school. I was simply pointing out that there is an insidious movement to demonize guns and hunting while (intentionally?) ignoring the root causes of school violence. I would imagine there were isolated incidents of students threatening teachers a hundred years ago. But it seems that kids who are involved responsibly in the shooting sports are better academically and less apt to get in trouble. I also live in Pennsylvania and know all about the first day of deer season being a holiday, but I also know the level of participation is slipping every year. It seems fewer kids are willing to sit in the cold from 0-dark-thirty to dark-thirty when they could be sitting in front of the computer playing games. No doubt some of that is due to the precipitous decline in deer numbers thanks to an out of control Pennsylvania Game Commission. I sometimes wonder if that isn't backdoor gun control by our anti-gun Gov., Ed Rendell... i.e., slowly kill the hunting culture in Pa. to make it easier to enact gun control laws, but that's another topic. I also agree that the shooting sports are still alive and well and know that the NRA boasts five times the membership that it did in those good old days I talked about. However, I would submit that part of that is due to a higher percentage of gun owners finally taking the threat of loss of Second Amendment rights seriously. Time was we could keep the gun grabbers largely at bay by having a majority of gun owner support in the House or Senate even if we had to weather an anti-gun President. Now we are at a point where it seems a Hillary or Obama can sign on to a U.N. Global gun ban and were suddenly criminals and our investment in our hobby or passion becomes worthless or contraband. It all becomes easier if we demonize the guns and indoctrinate our kids. Anyone here recall Bill Clinton's speech in New York the day after the Murrah Federal Building was bombed? He used that as an excuse to call for tighter gun laws. Now what kind of gun took down that building...must've been one of them Ultra Mags?? Anyway, I hope the debate spreads beyond this thread since preaching to the choir won't do much. It's been great to be able to air this out while we still have the right. Keith
