I didn't get the center fire rifles until my 3rd year, after I passed my expert certification.  Started with an air rifle, then .22s.  Safety training was required.  Nobody got shot while I was there.  Generally I would say it was better training than the average redneck got from dad sucking down beers out hunting.

RE

Quote from: RE on Sep 09, 2025, 07:37 PMI didn't get the center fire rifles until my 3rd year, after I passed my expert certification.  Started with an air rifle, then .22s.  Safety training was required.  Nobody got shot while I was there.  Generally I would say it was better training than the average redneck got from dad sucking down beers out hunting.

RE

Depends on the dad. Most folks in the holler were fairly serious about getting the kiddies up to speed on firearms. Start around 8, shooting 22's under the uncles supervision, my own by 10 (grandma talked mom into it rather than an air rifle) and by 11 get them with a centerfire, 30-30's were quite popular getting ready for deer season. And then of course the hunter-safety course at 11 so the instant someone turned 12...LIVE FIRE! Groundhogs if you turned 12 earlier in the year, I was legal about 1 week before the beginning of deer season. But they allowed the hunter safety course when you were 11 for just this sort of circumstance.

Average rednecks were mostly so-so. I got my training from uncles and a friend of my moms from her parents without partners church group. Loaned me a 30-30 as well, took me out to sight it in, he was quite reasonable when it came to training someone elses kid. More of a structured tradition than one might think, in the holler.

The whole 8-12 year old thing was where firearms began, certainly not where it ended.

I can't even imagine what firearms training looks like nowadays, with the rumours and tales and anti-gun and pro-gun sales pitches and mass shootings always in someone's mind and so on and so forth. I took care of both the kids and the wife, no interest in hunting but both have been to the range, the daugthter likes the Glock, the boy the 357 revolver. The wife only wanted to know where it was in the house and has no desire to touch it, only hide it if guests show up. The 6-point antlers of my first whitetail when I was 12 sit in a box stored somewhere because the wife wants nothing to do with it, but it is a momento of a simpler time.

I find it difficult to call them the "good ol' days", maybe it is more like nostalgia?

QuoteThey rob you blind, and you thank them for it.

That's a tragedy. That's a scam. That's why I'm saying this right now.

Americans, you don't need a tariff. You need a revolution.

For decades, your government and oligarchs shipped your jobs to China. Not for diplomacy, not for peace, but to exploit cheap labor. In the process, they hollowed out your middle class, crushed your working class, and told you to be proud while they sold your future for profit.

And yes, China made money.  But we used it to build roads, lift millions out of poverty, fund healthcare, and raise living standards. We reinvested in our people. My family benefited from it too.

What did your oligarchs do? They bought yachts, private jets, and mansions with golf-course driveways. They manipulated markets, dodged taxes, and poured billions into endless wars. And you got stagnant wages, crippling healthcare costs, cheap dopamine, debt, and flag-waving poverty labeled "Made in China."

They picked your pockets.

For forty years, both China and the United States benefited from trade and manufacturing.  But only one of us used that wealth to build. This isn't China's fault. This is yours. You let this happen. You let the oligarchs feed you lies. They made you fat, poor, and addicted.

Now they blame China for the mess they made. I don't think so.

You don't need another tariff. You need to wake up. You need to take your country back.

You need a revolution.

Left and right in America is pretty much the same.  Both are about exploitation of others with the 'right' contingent being more brutally honest about it.  Banter between this faux dynamic is a screen which conceals the real power in society.  The ownership of the means of production and the social relations that flow from it.  But in America class war has been rebranded, and people are deceived.

While politicians argue and pundits squabble, the oligarchy extracts rents, moves factories, manipulates markets and bankrolls war. The result is the hollowing out of entire communities, the stagnation of wages, and an ever-deepening dependence on debt and precarious work.