AsianTrumpSupporter
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While others march, these teens shoot. At targets.
EATONTON, Ga. — Nearly four dozen high school students gathered at the Rock Eagle 4-H Conference Center here on Saturday, at about the same time that another group of high school students gathered on an outdoor stage in Washington, D.C.
Those at the D.C. rally had come to demand gun control. Those here in Eatonton had come to do some shooting.
This .22 Rimfire Silhouette Exhibition Match had been scheduled long before 17 people were killed at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and therefore long before the survivors of that rampage had sparked a national protest movement. But even if this daylong test of marksmanship wasn’t deliberate counterprogramming, it did provide an illuminating counterpoint.
There has been much talk since Parkland of the younger generation — the one that grew up hearing of shootings in other schools and participating in shooter drills at their own — and of how those teenagers are changing the conversation about guns. But every American generation is as multifaceted as the country itself, and the 44 high schoolers who took up their rifles in Georgia as their counterparts took up microphones in Washington also have something to say.
“No doubt a lot of this generation doesn’t think we need to have guns,” said Cole Cook, a ninth grader from Barstow County who has been shooting since his father first taught him at the age of 6. “I think they’re wrong. And I’m part of this generation too.”
Currently 4,500 children and teens participate in Georgia’s 4-H Shooting Clubs, says Craven Hudson, the shooting sports coordinator of Georgia 4-H. There are gun programs in 110 of the 159 counties in the state, he says, a ladder that introduces fourth through sixth graders to BB guns, seventh through ninth graders to air rifles and high school students to .22s, which are intended for hunting but can be adapted to shoot as semiautomatics. In a silhouette competition those rifles are aimed at tiny metal outlines of chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams, with two and a half minutes per round to knock down a cluster of each...
From my cold dead hands.
EATONTON, Ga. — Nearly four dozen high school students gathered at the Rock Eagle 4-H Conference Center here on Saturday, at about the same time that another group of high school students gathered on an outdoor stage in Washington, D.C.
Those at the D.C. rally had come to demand gun control. Those here in Eatonton had come to do some shooting.
This .22 Rimfire Silhouette Exhibition Match had been scheduled long before 17 people were killed at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and therefore long before the survivors of that rampage had sparked a national protest movement. But even if this daylong test of marksmanship wasn’t deliberate counterprogramming, it did provide an illuminating counterpoint.
There has been much talk since Parkland of the younger generation — the one that grew up hearing of shootings in other schools and participating in shooter drills at their own — and of how those teenagers are changing the conversation about guns. But every American generation is as multifaceted as the country itself, and the 44 high schoolers who took up their rifles in Georgia as their counterparts took up microphones in Washington also have something to say.
“No doubt a lot of this generation doesn’t think we need to have guns,” said Cole Cook, a ninth grader from Barstow County who has been shooting since his father first taught him at the age of 6. “I think they’re wrong. And I’m part of this generation too.”
Currently 4,500 children and teens participate in Georgia’s 4-H Shooting Clubs, says Craven Hudson, the shooting sports coordinator of Georgia 4-H. There are gun programs in 110 of the 159 counties in the state, he says, a ladder that introduces fourth through sixth graders to BB guns, seventh through ninth graders to air rifles and high school students to .22s, which are intended for hunting but can be adapted to shoot as semiautomatics. In a silhouette competition those rifles are aimed at tiny metal outlines of chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams, with two and a half minutes per round to knock down a cluster of each...
From my cold dead hands.
