When I was in high school, we had a school shooting team and we practiced after school behind the band room and over the ag fields. All of us had gun racks in the back windows of our pick-ups, more often than not with long guns hanging in them, and never gave a thought to locking the truck doors. We walked through the school with our rifles and ammo and never a word of concern was heard. By the time I was out of school and grown, there were no more rifle teams in schools, and you'd be immediately locked up if seen carrying one on school grounds, even in a rack in the back window of your truck. School grounds and 1,000 feet all around became 'gun free' zones. I saw fewer and fewer young people taking to the woods and hunting ... why ... ? I blame it primarily on social media activity of the younger generation and the lessening of the parents (and dads, uncles, grand dads, etc) being as involved in the outdoor activities for whatever reason ... some good, some not so good. In other words I blamed it in large part on high tech becoming the baby sitters and later their role models. So, when the requirement for a Hunter Safety certification became a state law, I became a volunteer instructor for Hunter Safety for more than 2 decades. Unfortunately then the program went online and the interest in real classes dropped to almost nill. So I retired and again blamed it on high tech. I'm still convinced real gun safety, ethics, wildlife ID, nor many other aspects of hunting can be taught via social media. But what I did notice was that as long as real life instruction (hands on) was the requirement, there was real interest by many young folks, but as soon as it went online, the interest went away. I admit and recognize that high tech/social media, etc, are a real boon to society for most situations. But I also see it as so destructive to so many for some issues like our culture, history, and heritage. This in no way is intended to look bad on anyone in particular. We all have our own needs and requirements. Unfortunately it seems as time goes on those needs and requirements take up so much more of our time we lose that amount of time and more in relating those old hands-on hobbies to our younger generations, hunting and fishing being the two most obvious. And for us gun lovers, the loss of interest in hunting is the prerequisite to loss of interest in gun ownership.
www.americas1stfreedom.org
). I’d love to see shooting competition teams in schools and some “basic” firearms training provided to ALL kids in schools. Teach ‘em safety and spark interest to build the future generation of shooters.
