"Freedom and Illusion" by Fred Reed

[KBCraig]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed184.html

...Things were looser then. When I wanted to go shooting, I put my rifle, a nice .22 Marlin with a ten-power Weaver, on my shoulder and walked out the main gate. At the country store outside the gate I'd buy a couple of boxes of long rifles, no questions asked, and away my co-conspirator Rusty and I went to some field or swamp to murder beer cans.

Today if a kid of fifteen tried it, six squad cars and a SWAT team (in all likelihood literally) would show up with sirens yowling, the kid's parents would be jailed, the store closed and its proprietors imprisoned, and the kid subjected to compulsory psychiatric examination. Times change. ...

...The wretechedness we see today – the kid who shoots ten classmates to death, the alleged students strung out on crystal meth, the suicides, the frequent pregnancies – just didn't happen. Why? Because (I strongly suspect) we were left the hell alone. The boys were allowed to be boys and the girls, girls. We grew like weeds, as our natures directed, and so did not have anorexia or bulimia or the sullen smoldering anger that comes of being a guy kid forced to be a girl or androgyne or flower.....

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

I remember growing up in an area (and time) where we took out 20ga shotguns &/or .22LR rifles to school with us and put them in our locker during the day because a whole bunch of us (mainly boys, but there were sometimes some girls) were heading to the town dump after school to shoot at (and hopefully kill a few... gasp) "dump rats". Home was at point X, the dump was at point Y and school was in the middle. It was just common sense that if you don't have to walk between school and home extra times, why would you? We had plenty of arguments in school and our share of fights... fist fights, scraps, etc. But NOBODY ever thought of using a gun to settle one of those arguments/disagreements! Then again, kids weren't intentionally mandated to be doped up on things like Ritalin & Prozac. And bullies had a way of getting theirs... at some point, but nothing more than a "lesson", definitely nothing permanent!

[thinkliberty]

I remember growing up in a time where we didn't have freedom. If you brought a gun to school, you were called a terrorist and they locked you in a cage.

It was a dark age.

[LukeDiamond]

When my oldest boy (22 now) was in junior high, the counselor called me in to school to tell me that, when the students were told to write about what they wanted to be when they grew up, my son was overheard kidding with his friends that he wanted to be a terrorist.  When I asked the counselor if she was genuinely concerned about him doing that, she said, "No, but he has to be careful what he says at school."

A similar incident occurred when my younger boy was in 9th grade, two years ago.  The school principal called me at work to tell me that, when asked to write a story for English class, his story mentioned getting even with bullies.  It didn't even mention weapons or specific names of any people, they were only fictional nameless bullies.  The principal was holding Johnny in his office and informed me that he would be checking his locker for weapons.

[KBCraig]

I graduated high school in 1981, from a very small school in the hills of rural western Arkansas. My graduating class of 24 was the largest to date; my sister's class (1977) had 11 graduates. Grades 1-12 were on the same campus. Grades 1-6 and the cafeteria were in one building, grades 7-12 in the other, and all age groups ate lunch together and could visit during lunch or recess hours.

I do not exaggerate when I say that every truck in the parking lot, both faculty and student, contained a firearm of some sort, usually both a 12-gauge shotgun and .30-30 rifle openly visible in gun racks. Or possibly .410 shotguns and .22 rifles, depending on the hunting season.

I can't say with certainty that every boy in school carried a knife of some sort, but it was so common that it would be considered odd if someone couldn't produce a knife when one was needed to cut something. By ninth grade, almost every boy carried a Buck knife or other lockback on his belt. Demonstrating sharpness by shaving hair off one's forearm was a point of pride, and the high school shop teacher coached us how to get the keenest edge.

Where there fights? Wait, let me rephrase that: were there testosterone-laden teenage boys? Well, duh! There were scuffles, brawls, and even some serious knock-down drag-outs. Some took place on the school grounds, others in the church parking lot across the street (where students parked, because there was no parking lot on the campus). Not only did I never see anyone pull a knife or a gun, I have never heard of anyone pulling a knife or a gun in the history of this school. To do so would mean being marked as a coward of the worst sort.

So. Anyhoo. Like Fred, I would venture forth on my bicycle or motorcycle or on foot at 10, 11, 12... with a .22 rifle bungee-corded across the handlebars or on my shoulder, stop at the local general store for a box of .22 ammo, and spend a fun afternoon plinking cans in the woods. I wasn't much of a hunter, but sometimes I'd even bag a rabbit or squirrel, and I never worried about seasons other than "flea season", where it's not safe to handle rabbits for risk of contracting tularemia.

I hope we can share that experience with a newer generation, where they don't have to fear being accused of "turrizm" for enjoying outdoor sports.

[Lloyd Danforth]

After the first stabbing in a stairway, I carried a .25 automatic for the rest of my senior year.