But arms are educational
They’re on The History Channel all the time.
Major PSH from a group that is, and I am not making this up, protesting that ROTC offers arms training. Two things leap out at me here. One is that they really think military training is equal to criminal activity. And two that they don’t seem to think learning about arms is educational. Familiarity with arms is a skill that can save lives, in more ways than one.
Update: More from papaw:
Let’s face it, I’m a lucky man. I am lucky to live in a place where firearms are accepted and understood. Where I don’t have to repeat myself and where most folks understand the value in a firearm.
January 30th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I’m willing to bet that these are the same people who prefer we have sex education (read rolling condoms on bananas and learning of “safer” alternatives for both straight and gay sex) in public schools. You know, just in case. But of course, we can’t have the little dears learn how to handle a fire arm. You know, just in case.
January 30th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Kindly note that the “arms” in the photo are air rifles.
Hysteria does NOT form a sound basis for education.
January 30th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
It would seem that abstinence-only education is only appropriate for phallic substitutes, not actual phalluses (phalli?)
January 30th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
“They’re on The History Channel all the time.”
And the Discovery Channel.
January 30th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Careful, they’ve got “high-powered pellet rifles”. Everybody run!
-m@
January 30th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I was on the air pistol team and the male armed drill team (dummy M1 Garand and dummy 1903 Springfield drill pieces) all 4 years in my NJROTC unit, and whaddya know, I didn’t turn into a homicidal maniac either…
January 30th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
And I recall fondly the 7th grade, when Sister Mary John personally supervised the grinding of sufur, charcoal and potassium nitrate by her students, who had elected to make gunpowder for the class science project. How the world has changed….
January 30th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
What amazes me is that this is taking place in San Diego, which is a big-time military town.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
It’s taking place in San Diego because they can make a Media splash and ruckus there and easily command Media attention – they’re attention whores and little more.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
The Schoolhouse Rock video for “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” would never be made today.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
It’s not even taught today Les.
If it weren’t for military training there’d probably be a whole bunch of dead airline passengers and a lot more news coverage of something or other related to airplanes.
January 31st, 2009 at 8:49 am
Let’s take a page from their book. Download the word doc from the link just below “WRITE, PHONE, FAX THE SCHOOL BOARD BEFORE FEB. 10”; it’s all of 2 pages. It gives the names and addresses of the Board on the first page. Write the Board and tell them you support the weapons training program within JROTC.
Even though they say email is less effective, perhaps flooding email with support will be a good thing. In fact, here’s the email addr: board@sandi.net .
January 31st, 2009 at 9:47 am
TO: All
RE: Heh
My approach to preventing and/or thwarting another Columbine or Virginia Tech is having the ROTC Rifle Marksmanship Team be the schools Rapid Response Unit.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Once the shooting starts, you’re either a combatant or a pop-up target. — CBPelto]
January 31st, 2009 at 10:02 am
It’s California, what did you expect? Wait until they start asking you for money to bailout their state and city pension plans. When will than damn earthquake show up?
January 31st, 2009 at 10:11 am
I have long argued that it is precisely the criminals who should most be encouraged to learn how to shot properly. Since they mostly shoot (or try to shoot) each other, society could only benefit if they were more accurate. Fewer innocent bystanders would be hit.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:18 am
And it is the same people protesting this program who will advocate that a minor can have an abortion with no parental notification/approval/whatever required.
Faster and funnier. I swear.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:25 am
That’s amazing. A couple of points.
1. The site claims that Chicago got rid of shooting in 1999. I wonder if they reinstated it.
2. One of the linked news articles quotes ”
Eduardo Ochoa teaches social justice at Lincoln High School in Chollas View. ” What’s up with that?
3. He says ““We teach our kids to think critically,” Ochoa says, “so as soon as my kids became conscious about a gun range on campus and other students being trained to shoot weapons, they started asking questions about the zero-tolerance policy. Since day one at this school, they’ve been told about there being no exception to having any weapons on campus, so they started making petitions and getting signatures from other students and staff members.”
a. I wonder if he’s more worried about the Zero-tolerance policy looking foolish than the shooting range being a bad thing. Too bad
b. Teenagers complaining about adult hypocrisy is not something the teachers are “teaching”, IMHO. They come by it naturally.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:07 am
These people are idiots. I plan to write the School Board and tell that children learning to use firearms responsibly is a good thing, and that JROTC is an excellent program for teaching children discipline and responsibility. It’s time to fight back. I don’t live in CA and they’ll probably ignore me but it would be great if CA people would overwhelm the school district with letters of support of JROTC. As this grop says, e-mail is less effective than letters and fax. Use their strategy. I’ll be faxing.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:51 am
Here’s the email of the group pursuing this nonsense: educationnotarms@gmail.com
January 31st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Apparently parental consent is importatn in THIS instance, just not for an abortion.
January 31st, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Um, important. Sorry.
January 31st, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Funny. As an alumnus of San Diego City Schools JROTC I find their position perplexing. A much, much lower percentage of my fellow JROTC cadets went on to be criminals than the overall student body. The instructors made it a point to ban military recruiters from the area and kicked out students that didn’t want to be enrolled. Weapons training was voluntary, and anyone was allowed to non-participate at any time without it adversely effecting their grade. Oh, and weapons training is about 2% of the syllabus. But let’s not have the facts get in the way of their soundbites.
Thankfully, the Constitution (which I learned more about in JROTC than I did in any other course in high school) allows people to believe whatever they want, even if they’re delusional. As a smart guy once wrote: “You can’t handle the truth”.
January 31st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
So what you’re saying is that this isn’t the right season for me to bring back the high school rifle team?
There are only about 50 colleges fielding NCAA rifle teams. There are only two national rifle clubs left–and I’ll bet no one reading this can name them.
Try working with the Boy Scout shooting program for a year, if you want to find out what your fellow citizens really think of you. Many private clubs have dropped their youth programs, ostensibly due to fear of liablity, but also the kids-off-my-lawn harumphing of senior club members.
ROTC dropped smallbore several years ago after the first-ever (in 125 years) scholastic rifle fatality: a gun-handling error. Competition heavily favors air rifle because the Euros are most of the way to banning gunpowder, the Olympics will follow suit, and the Germans make lots of money on air rifles (no American maker offers either a target .22 or an international air rifle). If you hope for a scholarship (about 3 per year per school, NCAA football rules) you’d better excel in both disciplines.
And yet, and yet, for all the big-bore handgun tactical head-for-the-hills gunblogging that goes on, I never ever see a mention of the collegiate sport, or the National Matches, or state conventional prone competition. And this is because? (Hint: cat herding) Nobody hates a shooter like another shooter.
Those are not high-power air rifles. A Quackenbush .457 is a high-power air rifle.
January 31st, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Competition also favors air rifle & pistol because facilities are easier to come by. A lot of schools have ranges built in a more civilized time that have been ruled unfit for cartridge arms due to ventilation issues…but which are OK for air arms.
January 31st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Don’t worry guys. This is from a year ago. The date says “TUES. FEB. 10, 2008” Move along. There is nothing to see here.
January 31st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
“The date says ‘TUES. FEB. 10, 2008′”
February 10, 2008 was a Sunday; February 10th is on a Tuesday this year.
February 1st, 2009 at 12:53 am
My father gave me a pellet gun when I was about ten years old. I got so that I could put two pellets in the same target hole pretty reliably when I was about twelve. Later, in the Army, I qualified expert on my first try, third in my battalion. Pellet guns are useful and can be fired in the garage without giving the neighbors a problem. They’re also helpful if you have mice in the house.
February 1st, 2009 at 1:12 am
That was meant to be a joke about their stupidity. Sorry if it didn’t come out that way.
February 1st, 2009 at 11:15 am
The safe and legal use of firearms and deadly force is one of the greatest thing we can teach our children.Take a look at these Drexel students, circa 1925:
http://www.shorpy.com/node/5392?size=_original
February 1st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
“The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.”
–Thucydides
February 1st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
“Them as builds a wall between
the Service and the Schools
Gits thur thinkin’ done by ca’ards
an’ thur fightin’ done by fools”
–Thucydides, in the folksy Hoosier translation
Tom, it gets worse. Last year a culture-blogger found yearbook photos of the scores of high-school rifle teams that existed only 50 years ago–in New York City.
Note the excellent open-action discipline at Drexel.
February 1st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Near-excellent.