| Shooting Sports Slowly Returning to Colleges |
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| Written by Daniel White | |
| Tuesday, 10 June 2008 | |
My uncle tells stories about being in the rifle club when he was in high school. A few years ago, I visited a private catholic school that still had a shooting range in the basement (though it is now defunct). In the nineties, I visited Edinboro University in Pennsylvania which had a operational shooting range (I don't know if it is still in existence there). In the recent past, though, shooting sports on college campuses and high schools had all but died out due to the ill-conceived notion that "guns and kids don't mix" toted by the gun grabbers. Now, though, the shooting sports are making a comeback in colleges, and hopefully high schools won't be far behind. HumanEvents.com ran an article today covering, in part, the resurgence in competitive shooting and the rising interest in Second Amendment clubs, which they partially attribute to the fact that "students value their Second Amendment rights and are willing to work to protect them." Featured prominently is the University of North Carolina's Tar Heel Rifle and Pistol Club, a three year old organization which has grown to over 180 members. The Leadership Institute’s Campus Leadership Program lists the Tar Heel program as one of 136 such groups they work with across the country. The University of Vermont Shooting Sports Club recently competed in a tournament with Yale University and the University of Connecticut, and Hillsdale College in Michigan recently purchases 72 acres of land to set up a shooting facility. Human Events also reported that "next spring Michigan State University is set to open a 23,000-square-foot shooting sports facility with indoor archery and small-bore rifle ranges and three outdoor archery ranges." These were just a few of the many colleges and universities covered in the article who were instituting or expanding their shooting sports programs or gun rights organizations. At the high school level, archery programs are starting to spring up across the country (including in Ohio) and it is hoped by many that airgun programs will soon build on that success. Not only will the proliferation of such programs help the grow the next generation of gun rights advocates, but the shooting sports are great forms of recreation, competition, easily accessible to handicapped athletes, and statistically have fewer injuries than many sports. As an added bonus, familiarity with firearms and the accompanying training lead to a much lower risk of having a firearms related accident. Not to mention the fact that the skills learned might one day save your life. |