I’ve posted on this before, but…in NYC? SRSLY?!?
This month, more than 100,000 city public school kids walked out to protest gun violence — but last century some students attended class armed with their rifles and practiced shooting on school grounds.
Many of the city’s public high schools had shooting clubs and a few even had gun ranges on their premises, according to accounts from the Department of Education and others.
There were at least three shooting ranges in public schools, the DOE said, including Curtis HS on Staten Island and Erasmus Hall HS in Brooklyn.
Another inside Far Rockaway HS in Queens, which closed in 2011, is shown in a black-and-white archival photo from May 1929 displaying a compartmentalized gun range with at least five windows to shoot from and cranks for students to pull the targets back and forth.
“To accommodate the kids, they even made them these little pull-out benches they can kneel on to shoot from that position or even lie down to shoot,” said Darren Leung, owner of Westside Rifle & Pistol Range in Chelsea, describing the equipment seen in the 89-year-old photo. “What an excellent design.”
“Even in New York City, virtually every public high school had a shooting club up until 1969,” gun-rights advocate and academic John Lott Jr. wrote in his 2003 book, “The Bias Against Guns.”
In an incredibly bizarre twist also noted by Glenn, this was also an era when school shootings were unheard of. Why, one could almost be forgiven for concluding that the modern-day phenomenon of government-school mass murders might possibly be attributable to some cause other than guns!!!
I know, I know, that’s just crazy talk there.
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When toting guns in high school was cool
https://nypost.com/2018/03/31/when-toting-guns-in-high-school-was-cool/
Nice article, thanks.
I carried my 22 rifle to elementary school in the early 60’s. I’d just prop it in the corner until time to go home. Not every day though, just on occasion.
It was not unusual to see me walking down the street starting at age 10 with a 22 rifle.
That persisted in America (of which NYC has never been a part) long past 1929.
We had a rifle team at both of my high schools back in the 70s, about ’73-78. And a pistol team at Bishop Dunne Catholic High School, at least in 73, 74, and 75 when I was there from late Jr High through early HS.
At Sunset High (Public), they might as well have just cancelled school on Opening Day for deer, duck, dove, and quail seasons. As it is, they let out early – right after lunch – on all four Opening Days. And it wasn’t at all unusual for kids to bring their deer rifles or shotguns to school in their car or pickup truck on Fridays during hunting season so they could head straight out after school for hunting.
Nobody thought twice about it. If a teacher found out, he/she might ask what kind of rifle/gauge of shotgun you had. If it was a coach, he might compare guns with you: because he was most likely heading out for deer or duck hunting after school himself.
And this was urban Dallas, not one of the outer suburbs like Lancaster or some small Texas town.
Let’s face it, Mike: we grew up in an alien world.
I’m redefining that – we live in an alien world now.
“We” do – but it’s not alien to anyone under the age of 40.
We’re the aliens now. We might as well be from Alpha Centaurii for all that current era Earthlings have in common with us.
1969? Hey, when you have a war to lose you don’t want high school age kids proficient in shooting a rifle, now do ya?