My buddies and I completed the required Hunter Safety Course at the local high school -- I must have been aged about twelve. The minimum age for course enrollment is eleven in New York. A legal hunting license can be purchased in New York State at age twelve, purchased only after successful completion of the aforementioned New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Hunter Safety Course. My friends and I were aged fourteen when first licensed for small game hunting. My father had taught me to safely handle and shoot small arms years before. As a farm kid growing up, I had been hunting woodchucks, varmints, and small game since about age ten, hunting alone in our fields using the family seven-shot bolt-action .22 caliber long rifle, and this with my parent's knowledge and permission. Youthful firearms education and training, under the qualified guidance of a certified small arms instructor, should be considered necessary public policy under logic similar to the common-sense rationale behind youthful driver education and defensive driving training.
Reflecting now on the 1950's sight of three young men walking down Main Street in our hometown, all with unloaded shotguns – traveling a couple miles by foot to a local wooded hunting ground on the village outskirts (to hunt an unlucky rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, etc.). Hunting big game would come later. I wonder what would happen today if three middle-teen guys, armed with shotguns, were observed walking down a Main Street sidewalk? Admittedly, I'd probably be a bit concerned today, wondering what these youths are up to and holding a fair amount of uneasy questions at the sight. Times today have certainly changed.
The last time a semi-automatic M-16 Rifle was in my hands.
One slightly outside the black; score 49-of-50.
On a current firearms issue, I strongly favor arming qualified school teacher volunteers, folks not personally opposed to this U.S. Constitution-based principle. A simple no will due to those opposed... then just go away... no politics please... just say no and be on your way. Select volunteer small arms training candidates from educators who are military veterans, avid target shooters, or game hunters. Where these teachers cannot be found, recruit well-adjusted armed teacher candidates from those willing to be rigorously educated and trained in all manner of effective small arms use. Such school teachers are present in most schools without doing an extensive investigation. However, we do not need a school-yard Gestapo force administered by local politicians or the county sheriffs. Furthermore, any state law restricting gun ownership to the over-aged-twenty-crowd is on its face probably unconstitutional and should be eventually found so by the Supreme Court Of The United States on clear Second Amendment grounds.
I'm proud to be a long-time member of the National Rifle Association, a strong advocate of private firearm ownership, and a firm supporter of those very clear twenty-seven words our nation's Founders provided in The Bill Of Rights; otherwise put, Amendment II to the United States Constitution.
A Chart, and something for liberals to ponder...
