To swing back to the positive side of things: Those middle school and high school trap teams have another positive impact we haven't mentioned. Or potential impact. Assuming you have wild bird populations in your neighborhood, you can get together with Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever or maybe the Ruffed Grouse/American Woodcock Society and organize some hunts for the kids. I've run my dogs and guided on some of those hunts. We not only need more shooters. We also need more hunters. We may lose them temporarily (college, military, starting a family, starting a career) but they may very well return to the sport later. They are the future of hunting. We're doing better with women, and I think a lot of that is a result of the trap shooting. Guns in a school sponsored activity? I'm about half amazed we're getting away with it. But I'm glad. The school trapshooting is really big, all across the Midwest.
I don't think there is any doubt that the trap teams are getting more girls and women into guns and into the field. It has been a real game changer. I can imagine that the same might happen for rifle hunting if we could get air rifle teams or something like that going. But I think that is pretty rare at the high school level.
