EAG news: SMITHFIELD, N.C. – A North Carolina high school recently unveiled its new indoor shooting range,
a facility made possible by JROTC students and donations from the community.
Several students in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at Smithfield Selma High School recently helped their instructor, Commander David Michael Wegman, to resurrect the school’s marksmanship program and construct a shooting range on campus, WTVD reports.
No doubt Progressives will find some off-the-wall, micro-aggressive, rape-culture, racial reason to bitch and moan about this in 3, 2, 1…
In my minds eye I see the strings of pearls slowly unclutched from the cooling and blood-stained fingers of Chapel Hill orthodox collectivists after their heads exploded upon hearing about this wonderful turn of events.
This is one of the reasons I think Junior ROTC is such a valuable program for kids, even more so these days. I was in the local JROTC in the late 1970’s and all of us in the program had to qualify to a minimum standard with a .22 rifle. Part of the qualification was learning how to operate a rifle safely and shooting proficiently from the prone, standing and kneeling positions.
Our program director had seen one of his students shot in the head and killed on the rifle range in a different program years earlier and he was understandably very stringent on safety with us. His story about having to tell the boy’s parents struck home with all of us as well and made us even more conscious of the safety rules.
Our rifle team competed in the national finals a couple of years while I was there. The current rifle team is also pretty good from what I hear. Shooting firearms is a life skill that no young person should be without. JROTC doesn’t mean you have to go into the military at all, but it is a program that teaches discipline and other valuable skills including first aid, map reading and the like (at least it did when I was in it). It was mandatory for the first year when I went and I think it should be now as well – it would do a lot of good for every young person to have that experience.
We have oceans. You learn how to swim.
We have planes. You learn how to fly.
We have cars. You learn how to drive.
We have bars. You learn how to drink responsibly.
We have children. You learn how to raise them.
We have power tools. You learn how to correctly use them.
We have guns. You learn how to correctly use them.
There was a rifle range at my high school in San Diego. The ROTC did drills on campus with real firearms.
We had an indoor shooting range at my grade school over 50 years ago. It was run by the American Legion and parents. Moreover, it was seen as unremarkable and quite normal.