Saturday, January 31, 2009

Arms = Education

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.

Via SayUncle, we go to San Diego where some there are consumed with pants-shitting-hysteria that there is ROTC on the high school campus and that some of them have pellet rifle teams.

I believe every high school should have a rifle team. Guns are educational on many levels. Between the metal work and the stock work, there's a couple of years of good solid vocational training there. On another level, there is the lesson that something powerful can be used for good or evil and both are contained in the single item. It's purely the choice of the user as to how it's used. Another lesson might be that some actions cannot be undone. A bullet fired can't be recalled. Handling firearms teaches responsibility.

For others, the lessons might come from the science of ballistics, both internal and external. Recoil, trajectory, energy, these are all hard sciences with practical applications in science and industry.

Then, of course, there are the Humanities, where we could study the phobias and mental health of people who are afraid of a simple inanimate object. Hoplophobes, Jeff Cooper calls them. They're simply irrational and I think Hoplophobia should be considered a mental illness, treatable by medication or electric shock.

So, in one rifle (or shotgun, or pistol), we can study history, science, the humanities and vocational education. Anyone who says that firearms have no business in a high school is simply a nitwit.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

This is just sad... Guess who is the #1 employer in San Diego? How about the MILITARY!!! friggin idjits... I agree with your perspective, of course that means we have common sense...

wv-canguess (where this is going)

be603 said...

Thanks for this news. I missed it here in San Dog. Let's see what we can get going! Need to show up at that Feb 4 meeting and support the ROTC shooting program.

Off to contact 308Mike and local NRA chapter and also to post to guns and hunters lists at my (large) San Diego employer. Will contact my American Legion Post too.

dw