By Danny Y.
With a deep breath, I finally put down the pencil. I closed the booklet and took a quick glance at the clock. I had 30 minutes left before my New Jersey Assessments of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) math test would be over. As always, finishing a long test early always had its drawbacks, and now I had to sit silently for the next hour and a half. However, since I had some pencils and sheet of scrap paper the teachers had handed out for the math portion, I did what all the other students do: draw . . .
The possibilities of what I could draw ran through my head, and I finally settled on sketching a M1911A1. Since fourth grade, I had been heavily interested in military history, especially about World War Two. My studies of WWII, which had consisted of hours of reading books at the library, and reading many articles online, sparked my interest in firearms. I quickly became interested in firearms development, the weapons of WWII, modern firearms, and gun politics. My years of research on firearms, had an M1911A1 firmly etched in my head, so I was easy for me to doodle it.
By the time I had sketched a rudimentary 1911, a teacher walked by my desk, and looked over my drawing (not pictured above). The teacher began freaking out over the fact that a 13-year-old student had drawn a pistol on paper. (I don’t mean any disrespect, because I appreciate and respect the hard work of teachers, but I feel the teacher’s reaction may have been over the tops.) Said teacher had me write my name on the page, for future identification or proof, and then confiscated it and began showing it to other teachers.
Fortunately for me, the two teachers that teacher chose to show my drawing to, were my Social Studies and Language Arts teachers, who already knew about my interest in history and firearms. They were very understanding and shrugged it off like it was no big deal. This was extremely lucky for me. Like most schools around the country, my school had a zero-tolerance policy, and like in the case of the Poptart gun a simple image of a gun could have landed me in a really big mess. At the time, I had recently transferred into the school and was unaware of this policy.
This little story wasn’t written for fun, it’s a call to action. It was to prove how anti-gun our schools have become. To the mothers and fathers who are reading this, your child(ren) are most likely growing up and being educated in an anti-gun atmosphere at school. School has a heavy influence on a child’s views on society and the world, and in recent years, our education system has been becoming more and more afraid of guns and against them in general. These changes are more evident with the implementation of zero-tolerance policies, and the extremely stupid cases of students being suspended over “finger guns” or “Poptart guns” in school. This anti-gun mentality in my school has already affected all the kids in my class.
In a recent class debate I was the only student who was against gun control. So in a class of 25 kids, only one student (me) was pro-gun. These teenagers are going to soon grow up and run our country. Having our future politicians already mostly anti-gun, will not help our gun culture survive in the future, and help to push our agenda of removing draconian and unconstitutional gun laws and regulations.
So what is my call to action? We need to target the younger audiences and educate them on firearms, because the American education system is failing to do its job in that area.
Yes, educating other adults on matters such as gun control and firearms is an important thing to do, but our priorities should be on the younger generations who are to run this country in the future.
As a 14-year-old student, who is the only pro-gun teenager in his class and has grown up in an education system which viewed guns as a “scary, black stick that goes boom and kills people,” I believe that it is time we started enlightening the younger age groups.
Although “infiltrating” schools with pro-gun knowledge and education may not be an option in these years, if parents keep their child(ren) up to date with knowledge on firearms and politics, then we can see a change. These children can help influence our schools in the United States, and perhaps, in the future, bring about change at a national level.
Please educate the young ones.
Cars exist in the world so we have driver education to better prepare our kids for the reality of the world; Sex exists so we have sex education to better prepare our kids for the reality of the world; Guns exist so the Liberals tell us if we stick our heads in the sand they will just go away and our kids will never have to face reality.
Hate to break it to you, but ‘sex education’ in schools amounts to about the same thing as their gun education: Don’t do it, don’t talk about it, you’ll just ruin your life and get yourself killed.
I think that depends on the individual biases of whoever designs the curriculum. I remember that my sex ed classes pretty much boiled down to “you should wait until you’re married and only have sex with one person, but if you choose to have premarital sex anyway, here’s how to do it safely”.
I think in some regions of the country, sex ed may be as you say. Likewise, it could be the opposite in other places; it could be a little too “encouraging”.
The truth is that comparing sexual education with gun education is like comparing apples and oranges. The best way to NOT get pregnant, let alone any diseases, IS by complete and total abstinence AND by waiting until you get married. This mindset is similar to not eating puffer fish. Puffer fish used to be considered one of the most sought after foods in the world, yet due to its high toxicity and a shortage of people that were under-qualified to properly handle the meat from those fish, it pretty much led to the death of anyone that ate that kind of fish, so Japan banned the sale of, as well as consumption of, the puffer fish in 1983, and, lo and behold, when the ban is enforced, guess what, folks? When the ban is enforced, then, gasp, NO ONE DIES! Wow, what a novel concept, am I right? However, there may be some of you that will say, “Well, that is a really great point that you made about not eating puffer fish, but what does that have to do with sexual education and it not being like gun education?” Well, the answer to that question is that sexual education is like the puffer fish. When you do NOT have sexual intercourse, you are strong enough to resist rapists, you learn how to defend yourselves, and when you all are a highly moral, ethical, values, scruples, and faith-based people that all put your complete trust and lives in YAHWEH EL ELOHIM, then you will NOT have these diseases come to you, period, full stop. The point is that, like the best way to avoid problems with eating puffer fish is to simply not eat one, the best defense against various diseases that are brought about by sexual intercourse is to simply not have it until you are married in the traditional Jewish-Christian sense, i.e., a HETEROSEXUAL marriage that is between a biological male and a biological female. Sexual education needs to be taught this way in order to prevent the breakdown of modern society. However, it IS like gun control in several ways, namely, that it is to prevent and quarantine evil things from overtaking people, that it teaches people to be self-reliant, that it teaches them common sense, that it teaches them intelligence, that it truly opens their minds, that it teaches them to defend themselves from evil things, and that the old adage that says, “To be forewarned is to be forearmed,” comes into play when learning about these things in your lives.
I relate.
When I was 15 years old, I carried a bookbag (more like a big gym bag) to school and it usually sat by my desk at home when I was not carting it around. I just left it unopen most of the time.
My 9th grade year, I went hunting with my dad. I brought my new (well, it was a pre-64 model 70 but new to me at the time) hunting with me.
When we got back that weekend, I put a box of bullets on my desk. Apparently, the desk got bumped and the bullets fell into my bag without me realizing it.
At school that week, I didn’t even realize what had happened until I got a call to the principal’s office.
Apparently, the Vice Principal had been passing through my PE class and had seen the edge of the box of bullets peeking out from under a book or something. He had confiscated it and then called me to his office after finding out who the bag belonged to.
Let me be clear. This was in the late 90s. This could have gone VERY VERY BADLY for me.
Two things worked in my favor. One, the vice principal liked me. Two, I was at a private school.
After getting to the office, I was surprised what had been found in my bag (I did not show off the bullets at school or anything stupid like that – it was an honest mistake) and explained what must have happened. Then my VP called my dad to verify the story.
From there he kept the bullets but I went back to class and at the end of the day, they were handed to my parents.
Now, bullets are not a controlled item in most states. In fact, the only reason you have to show ID when buying bullets at WalMart is due to corporate policy. However, administrative decisions in schools don’t have to follow any kind of logic (as proven numerous times in the last couple decades) and once again, this could have gone very, very badly for me.
I got lucky. I was not trying to be cool, I was not trying to show off, I was a victim of circumstance. It makes you wonder how many other kids might get in trouble on a yearly basis for similar situations.
And who knows, if I had been handcuffed in the 9th grade, during my formative years, during one of the worst years of my life …. who knows what type of person I would be today.
(Just realized this could have been a contest entry article. Damn.. lol)
I graduated HS in 1994 but in a very small school in a mostly rural area. Of course we had a no guns policy but it meant just that, don’t bring any guns with you. Ammunition, magazines, slings, drawings, all fair game, just don’t bring any guns (which is pretty reasonable). We likewise had a policy on knives, a blanket ban. However many of us carried and even used our knives at school when appropriate and nothing was ever said. Commonsense trumped the hard rules, and that’s the way it should be. Frank Hurbert, through one of his characters once said ‘Give me the judgment of sound minds over rules any day. Rules build up fortifications behind which small minds prosper.’. I’ll second that; students should exercise good judgment or else be dealt with appropriately, but faculty and administration should be expected to exercise good judgment, not just apply a written rule absolutely.
I’ll relate (if not for the first time) an event that occurred my junior year in HS that many won’t believe but which I assure you is true. One Monday morning in my first period class I noticed that the lower right hand pocket of my coat was zipped shut. I never zipped that pocket and so unzipped it to see what I might have put in their. What I had put in their was my uncles loaded S&W air weight 38. He had handed it to me the previous evening as we were attempting to get groceries and such from the car into his house and I’d zipped it into my pocket for safe keeping while freeing up my hands to carry. I hadn’t intended to bring it to school and in fact had completely forgotten about it until I found it there that morning. Now, I could have said nothing and simply left it in my pocket but I didn’t want to have to wear my coat all day or else risk the gun being found by someone where it hung in my pocket. I could have just left during the break in class and returned home but I didn’t want the attendance point. What I did was go to the principals office and simply tell him of my dilemma. You might think I had to be crazy but I knew him to be a reasonable man and he knew me to be the same. You might think he called the cops and I was immediately arrested but that didn’t happen. What happened was that he took the gun from me, put it in his desk and told me to retrieve it after school, which I did.
That was the end of it, he gave me back a loaded gun, said nothing to anyone other than to tell me not to bring it back and that was all.
I suppose there are people out there who would be in a panic thinking about the potential problems but apply reason and see it the way he and I did. If I’d brought the gun to show off I wouldn’t be trying to leave it with him for safe keeping. If I’d come to kill someone I sure wouldn’t be giving up the means to do so. He took my honest admission at face value; a simple human mistake had created an unlawful and mildly potentially dangerous situation that needed to be rectified. There was no need for the police or hysterics or anything but a safe place to store the pistol until after school.
When people aren’t utter hoplophobes this solution makes perfect sense. When reasonable people consider the problems involved the solution makes sense. Yes the rule was broken, but inadvertently and without malice aforethought, and I was self reporting in an attempt to rectify the problem in the safest manner possible with as little disruption as possible. By extention, I had to trust my principle, and he had to trust me, both of us with a serious secret that could have serious consequences. If he had been a totalitarian reactionary moron would I have trusted him? Certainly not, and what I would likely have done was STFU about the pistol and wait out the day, but was this the safest route? If you want real safety and security there first has to come reason and trust. When it’s entirely ‘us’ Vs ‘them’ you don’t have trust and you don’t have security.
Wow, I wish I had gone to your school. I graduated HS ten years after you did and if I had brought a gun to the principal the SRO would’ve shot me.
Have you ever read the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? It informed me greatly about the public school system, even the one that let me get away with that. it might help you with your experiences, putting them in perspective.
I don’t understand. How did everyone survive without a lockdown?
Society wide effective gun safety is DOA.
Causality of the culture war I’m afraid.
During a trip from Texas to California, we completed a pilgrimage to the most holy of holies (for kids of a certain age): Legoland in Carlsbad, California. If you have kids in that golden range of, oh, six to ten years old, give or take, this is something that should be on your “must do” list. In any case, we stayed at the Legoland hotel, where there is a pirate ship for the kids to crawl on, over and around. Not all, but most of the boys immediately dove into the sea of Legos that surrounds the ship (yes, a pit of Legos big enough for a group of kids to swim in), and they all created their own handheld masterpieces of weapons. Some were ray guns, some were of somewhat more abstract origin, but all of them (based on the sound effects from the kids) went “boom” or “bang” or “zzzzz” or “bew-bew-bew” (think Star Wars). And all around these kids where groups of parents doing the same thing we were doing: drinking some coffee, knoshing on pastries, and smiling at their little dears as they ran around insanely like boys of that age are wont to do.
No panics. No parents dragging their little Johnnies or Susies away in horror. No one saying “Oh My God That’s A Gun!” It was a perfectly ordinary group of kids, playing perfectly ordinary games.
In Carlsbad, California.
All is not lost, people. There are so many folks out there who do not see the world through MDA-colored glasses. Even in California. Don’t let your guard down, but also, don’t let the intense focus on every anti-gun rant and story that is part and parcel of the TTAG world color your own glasses such that you think everyone in the “real world” is an MDA nut.
Kids six to a sixty you mean; I need to go there!
Ah, California, I grew up there for most of my beginning years. Legoland was always a favorite.
I remember the days when my friend could bring in a spent shotgun shell from a range trip, for show-and-tell, and there would be no suspension, no hysteria, just, “That’s a cool show-and-tell piece.”
Nice article. And great writing for a 14-year old. I have seen lawyers who couldn’t write something half this coherent if their lives depended on it.
rExcellent article. For any age. And another powerful argument for home schooling.
Reminds me of when I was in the eighth grade. We got a tech grant for laptops for every student and I was on mine. My history teacher, a very left wing soccer mom type, found me looking at wikipedia pages over the small arms of WW1 Germany. I didn’t get in huge trouble but she got angry and always looked at me like I was going to shoot up the school afterwards. Because AR15s and mauser k98s are all evil assault weapons in the mind of the hoplophobic liberal.
No learning allowed here!
….I’m…pretty sure… that Danny Y. isn’t home schooled.
I am not home schooled, nor will I ever be. I have been in the public education system since the beginning of Pre-school.
I agree, for the children we need more firearm education. After Sandyhook we sat down and had a talk about what a gun is and is no with my oldest. A few months later the school here had a “what to do with an active shooter” assembly and my then six year old autistic son got into a pissing match with the principal about how a gun is not evil it is a tool. He won. In a school of less than 100 students the whole lot of them were in the tiny gym and he can be loud. Later that day we get a call from the school about how he would not participate in the drill to hide and cower. He told the teachers to “call my dad he’s in the ______” (opsec) Then we got him a. 22 cricket for his 7th birthday and now that he shoots he is even more adamant that a gun is a tool. Now I just have to teach my 4 year old and my year 2 old, when they are old enough.
I have grown up in a rural school (graduating this week), and we pretty much all are pro gun. Most of us grew up hunting and shooting for fun, and more than a few trucks in the parking lot have guns (mine included), the administration has no problem with this. We’re the kind of school that if someone found some ammunition, we would pick it up and keep it for later use instead of going full retard into a lockdown.
Don’t fear the fact that your classmates are stupid — revel in it. The world created by our “leaders” has become a zero sum game. Because you are smarter than the dolts you went to school with, you will have a greater chance of prospering. Enjoy it, and remember, if they weren’t supposed to be sheared, they wouldn’t be sheep.
Yep, if you can’t convince them to join you, use them for your own prosperity and goals. Consider them ammunition and your future a gun. I know, this isn’t politicaly correct but someone had to say it.
Also regarding the topic of this post, I remember once drawing a rifle-stock (the stock itself, not the gun) and a girl saw it and shouted “he is gonna kill us all”. I turned on my sarcasm detector, cocked my head to the side in curiosity and found no sarcasm.
Alot of students have asked me, “Are you gonna be the next person to commit another Sandy Hook.”
And that disgusts me so much. And the reason they say it, is because of my pro-gun attitude, and my interest in firearms.
It’s like assuming that every medical student will become some corrupt doctor in the future.
Yep. I got a similar thoughtless comment from a friend when I was discussing rifles with someone else. He did not mean it, but it is a testimony to the mindset of people who have no contact with weapons other than through the news. I am, however, fortunate to attend a community college in a very conservative area. There are enough gun guys (and girls) to not feel alone.
I had pretty much the same experience in my last few years of highschool, especially being in Southern California. I was the only regular shooter, hunter and generally pro gun person willing to stand up against most of the people in my classes. In doing so I did manage to change a few minds, and changed even more by taking people shooting with me.
Taking people shooting is the best way to educate them. Especially the younger generations that this article is talking about. You can spew all the facts and figures you want and talk about natural rights until you’re blue in the face, and maybe you’ll get one or two people to accept gun rights – but only in an abstract way. But put a .22 in a kid’s hands and point ’em at a row of cans, and nine times out of ten, you’ll have a shooter for life.
Danny, thanks for this well written heads up. Thanks also for speaking up when you were the only kid in the class who held your view. That takes courage and intelligence, and you seem to have plenty of both.
Excellent – the newest generation isn’t completely lost. Good job.
As a 12 year old student in Scotland I concur. My class, though, is not so much against guns as unaware. In our recent gun control debate I was the only one who had any real idea of gun tactics, ethics, practice, etc. I felt alone in the world. When I suggested arming teachers, my classmates looked at me as though I had a third eye or something. Good lord, I can’t wait until I’m old enough to ship out to the US of A.
Education about guns is taboo in the schools of the world, because the authorities want to shield the children from the horrible, disgusting, scary, KILLING machines. It is the same in other subjects, though. Learning about the glorious Empire and the Commonwealth, we learnt about how England bettered the subjects lives but not about the slaughters and massacres that occurred in the name of Cruel Brittania. History is written by the winners, and the winners currently don’t want us to know about guns. Or slaughters. Or anything that would give the serfs the knowledge to treaten their absolute and total control.
Assuming 18 is the age of majority, it’ll be a while before you make it over here…a lot can happen in 6 years.
Best of luck, and we’ll keep the light on for you.
Damn kid, we oughtta get you over here ASAP.
Same for the OP.
I attended a parochial high school in Dayton, Ohio in the late 60’s. I was a member of the high school rifle team, that was how I earned my varsity letter. Our school’s team was a member of the Western Ohio Junior Rifle League. There were 13 teams in the league. Our team practiced at the ROTC indoor range at the University of Dayton, we shot our matches in the gyms of member schools using small, steel bullet traps ( woe be to the shooter who missed the trap and but a bullet in the bleachers). Wright Patterson Air Force Base also sponsored a team and sometimes we shot matches at the base. Can you imagine 150 teenage boys and girls with rifles showing up at a military base today?
The school was located in downtown Dayton. I used to walk to school, from the west side, with my Winchester model 52D slung over my shoulder. I had shoulder length hair and hippies driving past me would yell all sorts of insults. Occasionally a member of the DPD would stop to check me out and then give me a ride to school! Once a rather disgusted patrolman told me they had gotten a 911 call reporting a hippie on a bridge shooting at passing cars, he did not have anything good to say about the caller. I never had an officer draw his weapon or even get out of his cruiser.
We have lost a lot of ground culturally over the past 5 decades, but we have also gained some real, substantial victories such as castle doctrine, concealed carry, stand your ground, statewide preemption and nullification. I have seen some dramatic back and forth swings in our nation’s mood over the years, from Reagan to Clinton, to Bush to Obama. Starting with this year’s elections, in November, the pendulum is swinging our way. The Hysterical Mother and her paymaster are going to be singing the blues in the key of misery for years to come.
I’m a teacher and my district doesn’t seem to freak out about any of this. Out on the playground some kids play guns, with machine gun sounds coming out of their mouths and throwing bombs all over. It makes me smile knowing that at other schools, these children might be tortured and then expelled like miscreant rubbish. At my school they’re just having fun and being allowed to.
I took a hunter safety course in 1992, offered at and advertised within my rural middle school. It was an after-hours affair. We also had boater safety, which was taught during school hours. Both led to a permit and privileges granted us youngsters by the State of Michigan which would be denied any others not partaking of the courses. I was twelve years old.
Has America changed so much in just 22 years?
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I was homeschooled from 7th to 11th grade.
I’m 18, pretty independent, I have been working for years and buy all of my own guns and ammo and I travel with my twin brother to rifle matches and Appleseeds and private ranges to shoot my AR-15, bought by me, with my money. I’m not a typical high schooler at all.
I went back to public high school this year. I’ve written three papers on gun control and far more on liberty/individuality/etc. When I get a 100% in my government class, my grade goes down. I give my teachers good effort, say sir and ma’am, and pay attention in class, they all like me. I wear a “Don’t Tread On Me” hat or shirt, a shirt with a big picture of a scoped and suppressed AR and “Come and Take It”, or a shirt with an even bigger AR and “AR-15” on it just about every day. Never had a problem, believe it or not.
My wife and I were driving home from Costco the other day when I saw some kids out in a field with an Airsoft gun. We pulled over and I went out into the field to talk to them. I spoke with one who was 16 years old (the others were much younger). He said that his high school and others in the area (including the one I had graduated from a few decades earlier) all had rifle teams. I was quite surprised, as I thought the rifle team had gone the way of the dinosaurs. He said these teams compete against each other and go down to Oregon (from here in Tacoma) every year to compete on a larger scale.
To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. Apparently, all is not lost.
Hi Danny 🙂
Hey man how’s SD?
I think in matters of child education you need to be very delicate. children’s minds are very impressionable, so what exactly can not be done is to resort to extremes
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Hi
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