How Things Change Out From Under Us
Anyone who has been around for a while and who pays any attention to the news sees many disturbing changes. Recently, I read a report that two children, ages seven and eight, had an altercation at school during recess. They were carted off in handcuffs by the police. The teachers or principal had dealt with the boys’ disagreement by calling in the law.
I wonder if the kids now have felonious assault records that will cancel their Second Amendment rights when they come of age.
When I was a kid there were no age limits to the Second Amendment. We all had firearms before we reached puberty. Anyone with the money could purchase a .22 caliber rifle at the local hardware store. If you were too young to see over the counter, the proprietor might call your parents to get an OK. You could purchase .22 caliber ammunition and shotgun shells at most any gas station.
None of us ever shot anyone or any farmer’s cow or mule. There were no gun accidents among my armed companions.
My grandmother never batted an eye when I walked out of her farmhouse with my grandfather’s shotgun. Guns were just a routine item. We all learned gun safety from the Boy Scouts. My grandmother only became concerned for my safety when I became the proud owner of a spirited horse.
If the attitudes that exist today had been around when I was coming along, my entire generation would be felons. I had my first altercation at the age of three. Bullies were ever present. A kid had to steel himself against them. At six years of age I learned that, Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers bravado notwithstanding, an older and stronger kid was just that. Fortunately, my mother was there to rescue me.
In our neighborhood elementary school, to which we all walked or rode our bikes from kindergarten on, recess was where one’s mettle was tested. One of our classmates, Robert, was much bigger than the rest of us and became overbearing.
Generally, our fights were wrestling matches. The first to get a scissors or a headlock on the other party would prevail. But Robert was a boxer, and as he was a head taller and long-armed, he was a problem. One day Herbert had enough of Robert, and a fistfight emerged. It was the first time we saw blood. Herbert was game, but Robert had the reach and the punch, and Herbert got a bloody nose and a busted lip.
The fight lasted a fairly long time, but the playground monitor, Mrs. Humphrey, a pretty young woman who taught the second grade, finally broke it up.
No police were called.
Robert won the fight, but it was the end of his bullying. Herbert, who was about 14 inches shorter, had stood up to him and continued the fight until rescued by Mrs. Humphrey.
Fighting was just normal. It wasn’t a police issue. Notes might have gone home to parents to explain the cut lip and bloody nose, but fights were just part of growing up. A person had to learn how to stand up for himself.
Standing up for oneself was a theme of an ad that ran in the magazines of my youth. The ad appeared in the form of a comic strip. There were several versions. The one I remember most was the one in which the 97-pound weakling takes his girl to the beach. The muscular bully kicks sand on the skinny guy, and, when the weakling protests, the bully pushes him down. His girl bemoans his lack of manhood. The weakling orders the ad’s product, Charles Atlas’s muscle-building program.
Soon the weakling is a different man. He is back on the beach, encounters the bully, and KO’s him with a right to the jaw. The girlfriend is overflowing with adoration for “a real man."
Today, this ad would probably bring a lawsuit or an arrest for inciting violence.
Certainly, the bully would be arrested for assault for pushing the weakling to the ground.
The transformed weakling would be arrested for assault for letting the bully have what was coming to him.
When I was in high school, a rich kid, Fate, who worked out with weights and whose father brought in professional boxers to give Fate boxing lessons, decided that he wanted my girlfriend. He spread the word that, after school, he was going to beat me up.
An older and more experienced student with a Napoleonic turn of mind advised me. He explained that I was unlikely to fare well if I worried all day about the event, which would be worse for having a big audience. The trick, he said, was to surprise my antagonist by striking first. Physical-education class would be the opportunity, he said. Fate and I were the quarterbacks of the opposing teams. My mentor said, “Pick the moment and let him have it.”
I did.
Fate was the better fighter, but he had relied on intimidation instead of skill, and it had not worked for him. Where there had been confidence, there was now uncertainty. He was unsure of the outcome, and this gave me the edge.
The fight lasted the entire length of the P.E. class. The football coach in charge of the period did nothing. Fate got the worst black eye of his career. Miraculously, I emerged unmarked.
I kept my girlfriend, eventually married her, and fathered two wonderful children with her.
This sounds like bragging, but the point is entirely different. Today, Fate and I would be carted off in handcuffs. We would have assault records. We would have no Second Amendment rights, and every time there was an assault in our town the police would pick us up for questioning.
Fate was no worse for his black eye. It probably taught him to escape from hubris. He went on to be a quarterback for the University of Georgia.
I went on to become assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
If the police had been called, they would have just watched the fight.
Today, even pretend fighting can result in expulsion. Not long ago there was a news report of a six-year-old who, playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers at recess, pointed his finger at classmates and said, “Bang, bang.”
The school determined that the six-year-old was a danger to his classmates.
How times change. We were never without our cowboy cap guns and holsters until we had attained sufficient coordination to be accepted in the neighborhood football and baseball games. In the third or fourth grade I took a .38 caliber Spanish revolver, for which I had traded a World War II helmet, to school for show-and-tell. The teacher asked if it was loaded. “No ma’am,” I replied, “this old pistol won’t fire, besides, you don’t load a gun unless you are on the firing range or on the hunt.” “Unless,” I added, “you are a soldier at war.” I demonstrated that the pistol wasn’t loaded by opening the gate and twirling the cylinder, just as Randolph Scott did in the movies.
The teacher wasn’t perturbed. It was a tame item, really. The previous week, Buddy Sikes had brought a copperhead to school in his backpack thinking it was a garter snake.
This article first appeared in the May 2009 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
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A friend of a friend of mine recently had her parental rights terminated. Two years ago, a false allegation was leveled against her. Her children were immediately placed in foster care for the two year duration of her legal battle with the state (California). While it was recently shown that the allegation was completely unfounded, the judge nevertheless decided that it would be in the best interest of her children to remain with the foster family. His argument was that it would be too traumatic to the children to be forced to leave their new home, as they had lived there for two years already... Therefore, by implication, he decided they have no more need for their mother, who is, after all, only a woman, and not someone from whom they will benefit by further contact.
In this way, the arrogant busybody who first picked up the phone to make an allegation to the trusted state, based on dark personal imaginings against a neighbor, won an astonishing victory over justice and freedom - and became the savior of no one. In the Soviet Union, many conversations were whispered in close quarters, as any other person might be expected to report unpopular ideas to the KGB. How far are we from this condition, in which devotion to the state begins to supercede nature and reason in most of our human affairs?
Mr. Smith @ 49:
As a native Montanan, I think I am at liberty to hypothesize that staying indoors during our long winters leads to gloom, boredom, depression, and isolation. The cinder block and concrete architecture so prominent these days crushes the spirit- aren't prisons similarly constructed? Breathing the crisp, clean, frigid, dry Montana winter air lets a man know he is alive, and maybe even somewhat free. It always reminds me of that prose poem by Solzhenitsyn.
Regarding the general topic of this article, how many of the recent shootings were perpetrated by "rednecks?" The Left always ridicules "gun toting rednecks," but how many of these actually commit shootings? To be fair, the fellow who shot up his family and former coworkers in Alabama would have qualified as a "redneck," (was a self described "survivalist," feared BO taking his guns, etc.) But this is one out of how many?
I had begun to think my memory was playing tricks on me, that there never had been a time when guns were far more available than they are today. These posts prove that there really was such an America. How does this history remain hidden? How can the gun-phobes and the would-be tyrants in government continue to get away with the story that "easy access" to guns is to blame for the mass shootings when so many Americans know the truth? And how did the supposed constant violence of "The Wild West" become accepted as the inevitable outcome if all guns aren't confiscated pronto? I thought Roger Mcgrath had laid that myth to rest.
Anne@45, your post provided me with a new insight on the evils of feminism. "[S]terile unisex grunts fit to serve self deemed masters" is the best description of the pitiful offspring of that foul ideology I've ever heard. In one phrase it points out not only the loss of our natural sexual identities and personalities, but also the upshot of this, namely, the low birth rates, which allow these dinks to focus selfishly on career and consumption and make them (with some noble exceptions) such poor parents when they do finally decide to have that one perfect child.
Rodney@23: Arlo Guthrie was/is a worm, and his song is a filthy lie.
The point about kids carrying .22 rifles through the streets without incident is something I've been talking to people about for years. Others have hit the nail - the guns didn't change - people changed.
I think I saw several societal changes happen right in front of me. At some point (early 70s), in my neighborhood, the kids changed from saying things like, 'I'm gonna kick your ass' to 'my parents will sue your parents for everything they have.'
I went to a Catholic grade school in the 1970s. The nuns rarely closely supervised recess. Fights, while not common, did happen and were resolved within our tight knit little group. But one time, while playing 'pile on' a kid got a fractured rib. That changed everything.
A big part of the problem was the fear of lawsuits and after several of those flew around the neighborhood in the early 70s (especially the swing set incident - a kid fell off a neighbor's swing and fractured a wrist bone), kids stopped playing with other kids. Everyone stayed in their own yard from that point on.
I think it's also somewhat unfair to blame this all on liberals. The attorneys in our town that helped file a lot of these lawsuits were Republicans who were quite upstanding in our little town. Nothing personal, you understand, they were just making money.
I also hate to point out that a lot of the society breakdown blamed on the media was simple capitalism in action - there's fortunes to be made for major media companies in pandering trash to the lowest common denominator. I hate to say it but when you have to satisfy shareholders - it's the free market in action. If I don't sell rap music to thug culture, someone else will and they'll make the fortune I could have had.
And who are you to argue against it? You some kind of commie or something?
We have met the enemy and he is truly us. A society in love with ever expanding profit will, eventually, market anything no matter what societal costs.
The difference is parents.
We used to take our shotguns to school in the morning on the bus and then ride home with each other to go hunting after school. It was no big deal. We always made sure the guns were empty. Even by our kid standards back then it would have been considered insane and stupid to ever have a round in the gun at all until it was hunting time.
my how things change. The way they have removed the second amendment rights of so many by making everything a "felony". They don't have to mess with the Constitution as it is to easy to go around it by making everything a felony starting at a young age. To bad.
I was raised in the 60's where it was common for high school boys to bring their guns to school on the rack in their pickup during the fall. One afternoon, during football practice, on a clear fall day a pheasant was spotted. The kid looked at the coach, nodded and went and got his gun. Took aim fired and hit the pheasant, retrived it and then went on to finish practice. Very common, no harm done and something for dinner. Today, he would probably be arrested. Why with the anniverary of Columbine, have we not heard of all the drugs the boys were on (anti-depressants and such)that are so common today but unheard of in my day?
The past two generations have been taught there is no way to know if something is true.
Therefore, there is no truth to stand up for, anymore.
And that's what we have come to.
Ideology is more important to us than the facts.
I'm a huge PCR fan. But honestly, the argument presented here is a bit too Either/Or for me. Some students just don't defend themselves as well as others and that is not a bad thing. And conversely there are an awfully lot of sadistic bullies who don't care that the other person can't defend themselves or are just no good at fighting. But it says a lot about America that it went from the way Mr. Roberts presents it, to its equally foolish polarized opposite. My point is both responses are the result of the same culture, ie; The Culture of Over-Simplification, itself a result of our Frontier history. I thought Civilization meant the circumnavigation of the use of force, not the glory in violence that could easily be avoided, or the hysterical and prissy resistance to it.
Perhaps what we need is a little Intellectual, Psychological, and Emotional toughness. A toughness that excessive reactions to violence, for or against, would only work to inhibit.
What we have in the US is a double sided sword...one side is the conservative, "build more prisons, put em all in jail forever, But praise jesus types".
Then you have the other side filled with the "there are no winners and losers, everyone is equal just take some prozac and ritilan and talk about your feelings"types.
Both of these are wrong, and therein lies the problem with the dualistic, good vs evil, us vs them thought pattern that has been programmed into the typical americans brain. It's a "heads we win, tails you lose system.
I am an atheist, gun owning, White male that believes in the constitution and in the legalisation of drugs for all adults, and that if gay folks want to be married have at it.
We need more than a two party system in our country the dual mindset is BS.
Everything shouldn't be illegal and we don't need anymore prisons, kids don't have add or adhd or any other made up sickness and it should be illegal to give them anti deppressents.
If guns werent made to be so taboo in America, then a gun would be just like any other tool in ones hands.
I think the worst thing possible, is trying to control the way people bare arms in this country.
1) Whether intentional or not, there has been a transfer of power and responsibility from the individual to authority over the last fifty years. This began with the return of the WW2 vets who were, correctly, seen as a threat from the grassroots. Well armed and battle seasoned, they were, indeed, a real threat (see http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/2/1985_2_72.shtml) that had to be defused carefully. Gradually, a tactic of "frighten and comfort" was adopted starting with the "Cold War" right on through the "War on Terror". The basic message was the same - the dangers of the world are too great for the individual so authority must assume control.
2) The Sixties saw a genuine interest among the young in making the world a better place. This particularly attracted those who, today, would be labeled "geeks". Well-intentioned but easily manipulated due to their inexperience, they filled the teaching posts of America and thus determined the mental future.
3) The decline of our economy forced the one wage earner model aside and women were forced to the workforce from the home. The same pressure blocked the option of the stay-at-home Dad. Feminism had little to do with it. The net result was to weaken family in favor of authority.
4) The media was enlisted to encourage overall fear and insecurity while simultaneously desensitizing individual reaction to violence. Thus the society as a whole found itself quaking before the lone gunman.
What we have seen is the adoption of a tactic of terrorism, not by some swarthy foreign power but by our own. The 9/11 attacks were driven into the public mind with a sledgehammer as the tapes rolled again and again. Today the mediawaves are shouting "Flu!" Tomorrow it will be something else.
How do we change this? Can we? No guarantees, but a start might be made by holding the media accountable. Perhaps a pooling of financial resources to hammer them with quixotic but high profile lawsuits forcing bebate over what they have done.
And back on the playground, perhaps a conscious attempt to use the same forces that instilled the fear into us to promote the idea that when confronted with a bully (whether in school or Washington) a valid response is to mob the SOB.
Of the posts I've read, a few mentioned how when somebody stood up to the bully, the bully was beaten and never bullied anyone again.
Evidently where you come from, the bullies are wimps.
Where I'm from, if you stood up to a bully, you got your face smashed in. The reason they're bully's is because they can beat everybody !!
All these story's sound like something from an Andy Griffith episode.
I'm 29 now but I can remember seeing gun racks (with guns) in the back glass of pickups when I was very young. I grew up with several guns in the house. I knew where they were, and I knew where the ammunition was. I was 8 years old when my father took me out to shoot for the first time. He taught me how to load, aim and shoot but most importantly, respect for weapons.
I have to agree, guns haven't changed. People have.
I sympathize with the general ideas expressed here: society has taken an ill turn, with the tumorous growth of the socialist nanny state, out-of-control feminism, and various other negative developments. But guys, reminiscing of the good-ole days of getting harassed by the local bully in your youth strikes me as nothing but senile ramblings!
I bet those days weren't as happy as you wish to remember them. Thinkin being harassed was romantic, is senility raising it's ugly head. Fight it!
Besides, nothing much has changed anyway. I am 42 years old, and when I beat up a bully that had been pestering me for a long time, the teachers chose to look the other way. They knew he had it coming. I guess they were secretly happy to see someone put him in place.
That was in the late seventies. Fast-forward to last week, when my youngest son beat up a bully that had been pestering him for a long time, his teachers reacted in the same way. They chose to see nothing, and do nothing. For the same reason. My son had the teachers' full blessing in defending himself.
Just not spoken aloud.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The ideas you are fighting are primarily found in the media, not in the minds of the people. People know they have to look like they obey the new rules in front of the boss, or they get into trouble, but that's all.
At least this is the case in my country (Sweden), which is the undisputed world-leader in feminism and state nannying, so I can't imagine things being much worse elsewhere!