I am old enough to remember when kids were allowed to actually bring guns to school

[arely staircase]

and I am only 40 something. deer rifles in the back windows of pick ups in the high school parking lot were not uncommon in rural East Texas in the 1970s and even 80s. Of course that is also back when seat belts weren't required and it was legal to drive down the road drinking a beer if you were at least 18.

I wouldn't support returning to such policies, I'm just making a my-how-times-have changed and I guess I'm getting old observation.

[Wait Wut]

1. I'm 48...

...never were guns allowed in school. No weapons, at all. Then again, this was suburban Chicago and we weren't allowed to drink and drive, either.

[REP]

65. So am I, and my husband took a rifle to school for Rifle Team

Greater Metro KC area (suburbs).

My high school had armed security guards, though (actually in KCMO - but in one of the better neighborhoods)

[mike_c]

2. I'm almost 60...

...so I can remember when kids brought javelins and broad swords to school....

All kidding aside, I too remember rifles in the rear windows of pickup trucks and I personally brought knives to school on many occasions-- not for self defense (I doubt I'd have gone to school if I anticipated needing a blade for defense), but rather because folding pocket knives were pretty ubiquitous male tools in those days. We also brought spring loaded "switchblades" and flip knives to school for their cool factor. I think those were semi-banned, i.e. the principal would confiscate them and return them after school or to parents.

Sounds like maybe there was a difference in urban and rural schools.

[BainsBane]

46. recess back in the day

[arely staircase]

78. lol eom

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. in my 40's

used to bring guns to school to hunt with after class was over. always had a pocket knife...hell, used it a few time in the school building to do various things... no one was ever shot or stabbed at our school...

sP

[madville]

4. Guns and knives were common at my high school

But at that time they were viewed as tools, not weapons, and were treated as such. Firearms had to be kept in vehicles and pocket knives were ok.

[RebelOne]

5. I am 74 and I do not ever remember guns being

allowed in schools. There were some idiots that brought zip guns (home made) to school and they were confiscated.

[ret5hd]

31. Well, that doesn't give much credence to your "#1 rebel" handle, does it?

just sayin'.

[RebelOne]

59. And what do you mean by that remark?

I only used the "Rebel" handle because I am a Florida transplant who now lives in Georgia. I adopted the "Rebel" handle because I am a rebel by many peoples' standards. I am a vegetarian, an animal rights activist, an atheist and I am left-handed.

[oneshooter]

68. What! No red hair? n/t

[alp227]

6. "legal to drive down the road drinking a beer if you were at least 18."

this is a part where change is GOOD. That's not a freedom good for any civilized society.

As for guns in the parking lots...in modern society it's now too risky. Think carjackings.

[arely staircase]

9. i agree on all points

to clarify, you could still get a dwi back then, but there was no open container law, and a visible beer in the driver's hand wasn't probable cause to pull you over. if you were weaving and had a floor full of empties, you'd go to jail. but I support open container laws.

[MellowYellow]

7. In the city of Phoenix it was the same way. Rifles in the back window. All the boys brough knives.

No one was ever stabbed or shot. The question we should be asking is what changed? Why can't the youth of today be trusted with the same freedoms we enjoyed?

[arely staircase]

8. even if you didn't have to worry today about a shooting

I bet a visible gun in a vehicle would be stolen pretty quickly.

[The Straight Story]

12. Well you would think schools would have security cameras

To deter such things.

[arely staircase]

13. yeah and everyone could sit around later and watch the video of their gun being stolen

maybe or maybe not being able to identify the person. I doubt they have cameras that are all being monitored at all times.

[The Straight Story]

22. And therein lies the problem (and a much deeper one)

We now expect things will be stolen. We expect kids to act in a certain way - ie given the chance to steal or hurt others they will.

Just like in society now where everyone is a potential terrorist, gun owners are inches away from going ballistic and killing people, etc.

We expect the worst from us all we get that propped up daily by the news which covers the few out of the many.

A deeper issue that is a highly sensitive topic: If you were to leave a gun in your car (say at school, in shopping mall, or in my hood which has a high crime/theft rate) and somebody stole it.....well, what do you think advice would be for people?

Don't do things like that? It is not blaming the victim, but it is pointing out facts to say that if you leave a gun in your car and it is unlocked chances are pretty good someone will steal it, so take preventative measures.

People say don't let kids walk around school with knives and guns, to prevent accidents and idiots from harming others - that is not blaming the people who might be victims but is an attempt at common sense given the society we live in (and even when dad took his guns to school they were in a locker or car until needed).

[arely staircase]

25. i get your point but

I think the expectations/behavior thing is akin to the chicken/egg thing. do kids act a certain way because we expect them to or do we expect them to because they do? I don't know. At this point it is a cycle, but where did it begin?

[The Straight Story]

35. Where I would begin:

First time offenders - don't jail em. Get them into some therapy. Ask them questions, research the causes. Try to find something in common.

The right will say it is a lack of religion, others will say too many violent games, some drugs and alcohol being so readily available. I asked one person about this earlier on FB, she said kids are now in home where both parents work, we spend less time together as a family and more on our own and kids have less direction and more desires to have the best and newest things, etc.

There is no one answer - why are schools in small towns less likely to have the same issues ones in big towns do (or least much less of the same problems per student capita)?

If I had to pick one place to start it might be spend more time on positive things in schools - instead of focusing on drills and lockdowns and feeding them stories all the time about the negative things in society spend more celebrating the good. If a student does something simple and good, do something back. Kids get expelled/suspended all of the time over the dumbest of things, going to school is getting to be like going to a prison for part of the day. They learn to fear each other, the schools, and as noted before we sell fear to everyone of everyone else.

They are not treated like people but as a source of income for the school district/charter. They have lost individuality, all are expected to be like others - like robots on an assembly line. A friend of mine in education remarked to me one time that schools no longer look at each kid and their skills, which vary by child, but seem them as one borg like entity. Some kids are better at math, others art, etc - but we want them all to be exactly the same and work on passing a big test instead of actually letting the teachers call the shots, the ones who see them each day and know them.

They have become products with money attached to them are more a commodity than they are people.

[arely staircase]

69. i don't disagree with any of that, especially this part

"but we want them all to be exactly the same and work on passing a big test instead of actually letting the teachers call the shots, the ones who see them each day and know them."

don't I know it.

[MellowYellow]

45. Probably yes. But back then they weren't stolen, and that was befor cameras were

Everywhere. So I ask again. What changed? We had drugs back then, parents who divorced, teen pregnancy, raging hormones. The schools were the same size. Why can't the kids of today be trusted with these things? What happened? Why the difference?

[The Straight Story]

11. That is a question I have asked many times over that no one really answers

And as I have noted before my dad took his gun to school (shooting club and other things) and a bow and arrow for archery and so on.

More people carrying around guns and knives back then and less people getting shot/stabbed/etc.

Society has changed for the worse, people try to blame guns and such, but those things didn't change - the people did. How and why is up to debate.

[arely staircase]

15. yes the people changed

and I have no answer for the how and why. but if you started letting kids bring guns, knives, etc. to school now it would be a disaster.

[Hoyt]

27. You must not have lived in the south, KKK and yahoos weren't nice people -- and guns were common.

Here is a photo of Lester Maddox -- Ga gubnor and lt gubnor in 1970s -- in a photo chasing a patron out of his restaurant because ole Lester didn't like Black people. Maddox had a gun, and his buddy had an axe handle (Lester sold axe handle too). Maybe this is where some of the gun crap you guys speak of started.






Most of the gun cultists I've known, are/were racists, and their guns were for intimidation or to protect themselves from irrational, fearful images they harbor.

[The Straight Story]

30. Hmmmm

Most of the ones you knew?

The ones I knew (gun owners) were (and are) far different than that.

Hunting, sport shooting, and just collecting in general. I worked for a company that made reloading dies and sold them all over the world. I was the office manager and dealt with many people via phone, letters, and in person. There were a few from the Ohio militia that we dealt with but most we people who just enjoyed shooting and experimenting with different loads (hence, the need for reloading equipment like dies and presses, etc).

Now in my neck of the woods where I live we now refer to as the hood. In an area that used to mostly white. Now it is not and our crime rates from theft to robberies, etc have skyrocketed. Do I think it has anything to do with race? No (mainly drugs) but if you want to blame a large group for what a few in that group do it seems like bigotry to me.

What percent of people who own guns use them in crimes? What percent of Muslims are terrorists? If you listen to the rw we should be scared of them all based on what a few do. If you listen to others all gun owners are cultists and crazy and want to shoot everyone up.

Maybe we should focus on funding our law enforcement more so they have the funds to enforce laws on the books, as I posted earlier :

Majority of Gun Dealers Haven’t been Inspected in Last 5 Years

Violations of record-keeping rules went up 276% over a nine-year period, according to the report, while the number of firearms licenses revoked dropped 43%.

Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, told USA Today that ATF has “an appalling lack of resources” to do its job.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022772542

[Hoyt]

43. Fact is, guns enable/embolden callous people.

Hunting is OK, but target shooting is questionable, especially when targets resemble humans or immature gun cultists play milita.

[The Straight Story]

51. Yeah, well

so does alcohol which I would guess contributes to more crimes than guns (and they really don't mix well).

Target shooting - a good thing to do so that when you go hunting you can hit your target.

When I was a teen my friend and I studied martial arts. We had shruiken and sai and such. We made a wood cut out, painted it, and named him Bob. And proceeded to attack him to test our throwing skills. Not sure if that means we were psychos or not, and neither of us ever hurt anyone.

If I am target shooting I like all kinds of things, like bottles, cans, cutouts of all sorts of things from zombies to sparking vampires and barney (my sister has 7 acres and a slew of guns, so when I am there we shoot everything from handguns to shotguns - and it is fun).

You and I both worry about the nutjobs with guns. The people who should not be using them. I am more than willing to work on weeding out those people. I know a 5 time felon who is allowed to own a black powder gun by state law, and he has killed 3 people (went to jail for killing the one, but he used his car to run him over. The other two were self defense). He probably shouldn't be even able to own that gun, and he recently used it and shot at someone's house (the cops could not prove it, but he did it - told me they pulled a gun on him...not sure I buy that, but they have a restraining order now).

What I often object to is how people refer to all gun owners in broad ways. My sister goes to places across the US and even a few other countries as part of her mission works and helps feed, rebuild homes, clean places up, etc. She doesn't 'love her guns' she enjoys shooting them with her husband and kids (they hunt, she does not). My dad has a CCW but never carries, but in this hood he has taken it out a few times and kept it with him when things were happening. He grew up with guns, to him they are just a tool like any other.

[arely staircase]

77. weeding those people out is correct

and to me that is why the nra is so hypocritical on background checks. if, as they like to say, guns don't kill people, people do, then shouldn't expanded checks at places like gun shows or between individuals be acceptable? once upon a time this might have not been feasible with individual sales between people. these days you could easily have a number to call, punch in a driver's license number and know if you were selling to a felon, loon, etc (as defined by statute)

I grew up in a culture where firearms were prevalent, but I was never a gun person per se (with the exception of really getting into skeet, dove, quail, shotgun stuff with my dad before he died) I haven't shot or hunted in years but still own a couple of shotguns (including a nice Berretta) as well as a lever action Remington and a WWII Lugar. They are all in a safe. I would enjoy skeet shooting again but don't really have the disposable income to justify it.

For the record I support expanded background checks and an assault weapons ban (as long as the law defines "assault weapon" correctly - meaning imho anything that can hold more that 9-10 rounds without reloading.) Such high capacity weapons are fine if you are a US Marine in a firefight with the Taliban but not suitable for widespread civilian ownership or general public safety.

[Jenoch]

89. Your views on guns are scewed by your

experiences in Georgia. All gun owners in the U.S. are not similar o those you have known in Georgia. As I have told you before, you need to meet mainstream gun owners in other areas of the U.S.

[Hoyt]

92. A whole bunch are.

[Jenoch]

93. Yep. And that is why you are unable to help

your 'side' in the gun control debate. Everyone can see that your opinions are skewed and your opinions of the vast majority of gun owners in the U.S. are inaccurate.

[Hoyt]

94. Pretty accurate actually.

[bighart]

47. That is an excellent question.

The tools have not changed much over the years but the level of violence has.

[MellowYellow]

55. For some reason no one wants to debate this issue. Maybe they know they won't like what they see

so it's better to pretend the issue isn't there at all. It's easier to watch more children be charged with felonys, than to search for the real root of the problem.

[ieoeja]

24. "Trayvon Martin hit Zimmerman."

Instead of arguing with people who make that claim, my response has always been, "doesn't matter, you can't kill a teenager just because he knocks your ass down."

And people, even DUers, actually argue that Z had that right.

I was Right To Keep even to the point of being an NRA member before I discovered they were conspiracy theorist nutjobs and extreme Rightist on issues not even related to firearms.

I was okay on Right To Keep and Bear.

But then they took the argument to Right To Keep, Bear and Kill. That shit is just nucking futs.


The last 20 years of unchallenged pro-gun propaganda has created a climate in which fathers are instructing their children that it is perfectly acceptable to shoot someone if they hit you. Fights in school are pretty commonplace. Combine the two and .... that is why they should not be allowed to carry firearms to school anymore.

[Bandit]

33. Kids used to get paddled for bad behavior back then as well but then came the law suits

Law Suits changed everything......To eliminate any liability the schools just did away with it all...Cant say as I bnlame them either.. too many parents were law suit crazy...

[Recursion]

10. Cardozo High School (DC) girls' rifle team

From the 20's

[MineralMan]

14. Some people are still bringing guns to school

We read about them in the news.

[arely staircase]

17. the only news any of the kids with guns at school back then made

was the picture of them with the deer they had shot in the local rag.

don't get me wrong, I think it would be a horrible idea today.

[HockeyMom]

16. I am 64 and never saw a kid with a gun in school

Ok, it was NYC and Catholic school, but was still the 50s and 60s. My Dad a WW2 Vet did not own guns, or wanted to. Must be something about actually being in combat, killing the enemy, and wanting nothing more to do with guns.

While my husband is a gun owner, his Dad, also a WW2 Vet, didn't own guns either. He not only lived with a bullet in his brain, he also liberated Buckenwald. He never talked to his son about it (or about guns), he did to me. Maybe because he felt I would UNDERSTAND him more? He SHOULD have talked to his SON.

[The Straight Story]

18. Thought you might like this:

http://ruthlace.blogspot.com/2007/02/going-to-school-in-1930s.html

Going To School in the 1930's

"I started school in January before my sixth birthday in 1929. This was the year of the stock market crash and the Great Depression. I suppose we had "poverty" but not in the sense of poverty today. Most people were in the same boat and helped one another. We were fortunate not to have 24 hour news, so we did not learn until later that people were jumping out of skyscraper windows to kill themselves."

[HereSince1628]

19. It was pretty common to see gun racks in pick-ups parked on campus at TAMU in the 80's

Usually there was just an axe handle in it. But sometimes holsters and belts were visible.

Back then you could drink a beer in a moving pick-up truck, but in Bryan/College Station you couldn't buy that beer on a Sunday.

[arely staircase]

29. i remember the axe handle accessory too

my county just went wet in the last few years. you had to drive to the county line on any day for a beer until relatively recently.

[Hoyt]

20. I'm a good bit older than that, and I remember when the bigots had guns in their cars.

Not much has changed. Where it has changed, the gun cultist are trying to turn back the calendar.

[mwrguy]

34. Bigots still have guns in their cars.

And under their shirts in public.

[bike man]

21. And there was also recess, where kids could pick their own teams, and play dodge ball, and

frolic on a 'jungle gym', and all kinds of physical activities/games.

And kids were thinner then.

[MindPilot]

23. I can remember going with my dad to buy dynamite at the hardware store.

As I recall he had to fill out a form and would rant at some length to the guy behind the counter about government interference in his personal affairs.

He passed a week after 9-11. I'm glad he did not have to witness what has happened since then.

[Fla_Democrat]

26. Two spots in the rack

top held a 12 gauge, (shells varied if it was deer season, dove season, or spring gobbler season) and the bottom held a bream buster.

Every guy had a barlow or a buck knife.

Big Bend, circa 1984.

[Jenoch]

28. It was common in rural Minnesota

for students to have shotguns in the trunke of their car or cab of the pickup because they either went duck hunting before school or in the last half of the season will hunt ducks after school.

When I was in the 8th grade I took a shotgun (no shells) to speech class to give a demonstration speech on how to clean a shotgun. My older brothers did the same. I don't remember anyone else bringing a gun to speech class though. Maybe the teacher only allowed one student to do so to vary the demonstrations.

[BainsBane]

38. not in Minneapolis

It must be a rural vs. urban thing.

[Jenoch]

40. I'm sure it was.

The whole gun debate is a lot about urban vs. rural thinking, culture, and behavior.

[BainsBane]

41. Very true

The impact of guns in cities is very different from in rural areas. I just wish the gun lobby would respect the rights of those of us who live in cities to keep our communities safe.

[Jenoch]

50. I grew up in rural Minnesota but

now I live in Shoreview. I'm not sure what your point is exactly. Do you think all of the guns in north Minneapolis and south Minneapolis (where most of the gun crime in Minneapolis occurs) were purchased legally?

[BainsBane]

57. My point is that the gun lobby

litigates against urban gun bans because they want to impose their world view on urban America (e.g. Heller). The fact that the result is deaths of high numbers of people of color may simply be an added bonus or it may be their intention. Regardless, their positions foment murder, and they know it.

[Jenoch]

60. The Minnesota courts banned gun bans

by cities in Minnesota, not the gun lobby.

[BainsBane]

67. Who waged the suit?

Courts don't act on their own. They rule on law suits.

[Jenoch]

70. You might be on to something,

but I do know that local laws cannot supercede state laws whether they are gun laws or other laws.

[premium]

86. Same in Nevada,

the state legislature passed a pre-emption law, N. Las Vegas took it to court and the court upheld the law, now, only the state can set gun laws, not the individual cities/towns.

Cities/towns can make the gun laws looser, but not stricter.

[MellowYellow]

54. No, it wasn't a rural vs. urban thing. I went to school in Phoenix and Austin. I'm

thinking about looking up statistics on gun violence in wealthy areas and poor and other stats I can find. There has to be a reason why kids could be trusted with guns and knives at school then, and not now.

[Control-Z]

56. Could it be that

kids starting using their guns and knives at school rather than after?

[MellowYellow]

58. Which again begs the question WHY? What changed? Why weren't kids with guns and often times

access to alcohol, weed and LSD killing their classmates?

[Control-Z]

61. The obvious reasons

are too numerous to list. Then there are the not-so-obvious ones. I'd be guessing.

[Stretch714]

62. Because it is not the same world now. nt

[Half-Century Man]

80. Why?

Why would you want to kill a classmate? Running from the fuzz kills your buzz.
The answer is, of course, some other stimulus is the prime factor for the increase of violence.

[premium]

84. Same in rural Nevada,

my p/u had a gun rack with a 30-30 in the upper rack and a 12 ga. in the lower rack, would park it in the school parking lot during hunting season and after school, would go hunting.
Never had a problem with theft of firearms from any of the vehicles.

[Jenoch]

88. Minnesota law always required the guns

to be cased and unloaded, so we never really gad the gun racks in the back window of the pickup trucks.

[CTyankee]

32. I grew up in Dallas and I never saw kids bringing guns into school. If I had, my mother

would have had a major fit. I am a third generation Texan, btw, and some members of our family did hunt (not us, mother was a real city gal and daddy had significant vision problems). I know I had cousins who hunted on Sept. 1 every year (dove season, I think) but they were in central Texas, i.e. Brownwood.

[OriginalGeek]

39. I grew up in Duncanville

and went to high school in DeSoto and I remember gun racks in pick up trucks and usually there was a gun in the rack. Sometimes just baseball bats though. Class of 81. It never occurred to any of us that they were for anything other than hunting though. I imagine it wasn't long after that most policies changed.

[CTyankee]

48. Suburban Dallas in the late 50s early 60s was not rural. I am talking about Highland Park

and Hillcrest High Schools, respectively. Hillcrest was in a district that had experienced a heavy influx of Jewish families from the Northeast. It was a distinctly different experience from the rural Texans of East Texas...

[OriginalGeek]

52. I always thought of us as living on the edge of city life

I could see Dallas from my back yard (lol - unlike Mrs. Palin, I had to get on my roof though...and usually got a beating for it)...but I could also ride my bike and be in farm/ranch land in minutes. I don't think I'll ever forget the steamy morning smell of the cow pastures as we rode the bus to school through them...

I can easily see there being a difference between Highland Park and D'ville...

oh I just remembered, the principal of our little school was known to carry a Walther PPK in his brief case or on his person at all times. I've never known my step-father to be without at least 2 guns nearby. That's just one of the many reason that I moved away from there at 17 and have only seen him 3 or 4 times since then and nonce since my mom's funeral. (Frankly, I'm just surprised the cancer got her before he shot her.)

[arely staircase]

81. what years are we talking about? eom

[CTyankee]

95. late 40s to late 50s.

[BlueStreak]

36. I remember when kids were allowed to bring their necessary medicine to school

Now if they have to take anything during the day, most likely they have to report to the Norse's office.

[BainsBane]

37. East Texas is not the rest of America

I never went to a school where people were allowed to bring guns. I am thankful for that.

[Go Vols]

42. Same thing here

We had guns in our trucks at school back in the '70's and most carried a pocket knife with no problems.

[newfie11]

44. Even today in some rural areas

I would not be surprised to find rifles in some on the vehicles parked at school during hunting season.

[PD Turk]

49. Yep

I grew up out in the sticks and generally had a 30-30 and a 20 gage in the gun rack of my '60 Dodge pickup. I remember badding a big buck on the way to school one morning and when I got there the principal helped me hang him up and dress him in a tree behind the FFA building.

[Tikki]

53. I lived in a So Cal beach town in High School (mid '60's). I remember all the surf boards lined up..

on lawns* neighboring the High School and the kids running off to the beach the minute the last bell rang.

They prob still do this in some towns...Guns were the last thing on our minds.



Tikki
*closed campus, but many stay-at-home moms would watch out for the boards on their lawns plus
there was an honor system.

[newmember]

63. Remember the folding Buck knives in the leather carry case on the belt?

Kids in grade school carried those never mind high school.

[Marengo]

64. My second grade teacher brought the musket carried by her great-grandfather in the Civil War...

to show the class. It was interesting, I remember we all became very quiet when she emerged from the coat room holding it. The object seemed to emit a kind of somber gravity. Growing up on a farm, I had my own .22 rifle by this time and was not fearful of firearms. But, this was different, and in a way I could feel but not understand or express at the time.

Not to date myself precisely, this was in the late 60's.

[baldguy]

66. My high school had a shooting range in the basement.

The school was built in the late '40s, and in the '90s the building was remodeled. At that time the state environmental agency made them take it out.

[hootinholler]

71. If there was an open season...

Odds are that I had an apropos firearm in my vehicle. I used to hunt before and after school when I was in high school. I graduated in 1978 in the Pennsylvania mountains east of Pittsburgh. This was open and perfectly acceptable. I believe that now the first day of deer is an actual school holiday. When I was in school it was unofficial.

[nessa]

72. There are still high school rifle teams

http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=butlerrifleteam

I don't know if they bring the rifles into school on a regular school day though. It's possible they are kept at a range

[lumberjack_jeff]

73. It happened during hunting season, but not really any other time.

Gun fetishists weren't admirable then either.

[arely staircase]

74. i don't remember a collective hard-on for para-military weapons back then either

the rifles were always in the trucks. but the first few days of deer season meant people might be a little late for school because they had spent the early morning in a stand.

I was in elementary school at the time but I well remember the trucks parked at the high school with guns in the back window on a rack. by the time I was in high school things had begun to change in those regards. but it was still way before anyone had ever even imagined mass killings at schools. we all had knives. by the time I graduated in the late 80s, think the guns were I think the guns were gone from the trucks, I honestly don't remember. neither me nor my friends had them.

[Go Vols]

75. I really don't

remember any gun fetishists back then.
This "assault" gun nut thing has happened in the last 25-30 years.

[arely staircase]

79. definitely, at least were i come from

but it is big time here in the redest part of red texas.

[Old and In the Way]

76. You would have been considered an antisocialist,maladjusted kid to

bring a gun to my school. I'm 60.,

[TampaAnimusVortex]

82. Pretty common in rural Georgia of course.

Just about every teen boy had a rifle. That was just assumed.

[Sgent]

83. We actually had the school provide guns

part of our PE education in a semi-rural southern schools was taking hunter's education in 7th grade. That included cleaning and maintenance on both a rifle (.22) and shotgun (.20ga pump).

In addition, it was very common to see rifles / shotguns in gun racks on trucks from hunting before or after class -- as young as their freshman year in HS (15 y.o. driving age, 14 if a farmer).

I graduated HS in the early 90's, so not that long ago (I'm in my late 30's).

[Jennicut]

85. We never were allowed guns in school but

kids did bring pocket knives. And we played with cap guns. This was the mid to late 80's when I was in elementary school. It's Connecticut and we have no real culture of hunting.

[union_maid]

87. That must have been a pretty rural area

I'm 63 and there was nothing that could conceivably used as a weapon allowed on school property. Of course I never saw a rifle rack either. Anywhere. Still haven't. I know some people have rifles, but I've never seen one in public. No idea if that's because of a law or it's just not done here.

[Occulus]

90. Day before deer season opened: loaded gun racks. Lots and lots and lots of gun racks.

Opening day: most of the lot- wherever you went- was empty.

SW Michigan, mid to late 1980s.

(Oh, of course kids in high school came in loaded for bear that day. They were headed out camping immediately after classes ended and everyone damned well knew it. And guess what? The big manly trucks with the racks were only half of the cars missing on opening day itself.

I think the high school actually closed one year due to absences on the opening day of deer season. My memory may be faulty; it's been a long, long time...)

[olddots]

91. There was a time in America when you could bring your slave to school

Things hopefully change for the better of humankind .