Guns in the classroom?

Guns Magazine, Sept, 2003 by John Taffin

One of the phrases used by the gun grabbers is, "guns are too easy to acquire and are readily accessible, especially to kids." That won't wash with anyone in my generation who grew up when guns really were accessible.

Way back in those dark-age days we didn't have lockers in the hallways but rather a cloak room at the back of the regular classroom. The cloak room is also where we stored our shotguns and .22 rifles to be used on the way home. Many kids brought their guns to school on the school bus. No one thought anything about it. There was no violence associated with firearms whatsoever.

Today, possession of a pocket knife on the school grounds is sufficient reason for expulsion. In my school years, every boy had a pocket knife. It was an absolutely necessary piece of equipment. How could anybody take part in playing mumblety peg at recess if he didn't have his own pocket knife?

In the fourth grade I received a brand-new, three-bladed pocket knife for Christmas and was given the official title of Keeper of the Blade by the teacher. It fell to me to open any packages that needed the assistance of a sharp blade or to cut any string or rope. Again, no violence was connected with that knife or any of the other knives stored in so many pockets.

When I made the journey from grade school to high school -- we didn't have junior high in those days -- I found the same gun friendly atmosphere. The high school library had a large stock of hunting books -- that's how I discovered Robert Ruark and all of the monthly outdoor magazines. My English teachers knew that practically every paper I wrote would have something to do with guns, hunting, shooting or the outdoors, and they encouraged me in my interests.

Student Becomes A Teacher

I started my own teaching career during the 1964 school year when guns were still "good,' at least in most parts of the country. When the National Education Association came out strongly in favor of gun control, our Idaho State Association passed a resolution against the stand taken by the NEA.

Schools, at least in my area, remained gun friendly. Through the cooperation of the school library, several gun magazines were received and placed in the magazine rack each month. As teachers we were given the opportunity to select books each year for the school library. I was always able to select gun and hunting books.

When Elmer Keith was honored by the local State University by having a scholarship established in his name, I placed both of his autobiographies in our junior high school library. The Reading Department placed them on the recommended reading lists. The most popular projects in Industrial Arts were rifle racks in woodshop and rifle scabbards, holsters, and cartridge carriers when the kids were taking leather shop.

The History Department actually taught history in those pre-Humanities days. When the studies revolved around the Civil War period and the gunfighter era that followed it, Civil War collectors would be invited into the classroom to bring weapons from the mid 19th-century. Although a mathematics teacher, I would be invited to bring in sixguns and holsters contrasting the real article with Hollywood-type gun rigs and helping the students to separate fact from fiction and myth from reality.

It was not unusual for students in the history classes to choose as their class projects the making of a muzzle-loading rifle or pistol. Each year during the last week of school we held a special celebration for the graduating ninth graders with a rodeo, square dancing, chuck wagon feed, folk singers etc., all in the yard behind the school.

Even though the school was right on the edge of the city limits I was able to get special permission from the chief of police to shoot black powder arms. I brought the sixguns and another teacher brought muzzleloading rifles to the show the kids how the guns worked and shot, with me dressed as an 1870s gunfighter, and my fellow teacher as a mountain man.

One day a parent came up to see me. Rather than being irate he was overjoyed. For the first time in memory his son was actually working and doing well in math. He wanted to know my secret.

It was simple. The young student and I had a common interest in guns, shooting, and hunting, and if he did his work on time and also succeeded on tests he had unlimited access to my library of gun magazines. Our bond and those magazines turned him from a "C-" to an "A" student. He was not the only one over the years, as many boys who had done poorly in other years were willing to work and do their best for me simply because we had a common interest.

Students weren't the only ones affected by guns in the classroom. Six teachers in my school purchased their first firearm from me. Several of the ladies sought me out for advice on selecting a handgun for concealed carry. In several cases I was able to take them shooting after school, allowing them to try various types of revolvers and semiautomatics in order to find out what best suited them.