[SuperScout]

Timely topic indeed!

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of my Dad and my two older brothers and the marksmanship/target practice/safety fun we had at the total cost of a few rounds of .22 shorts, some old tin cans, and a pump action Remington rifle, still in my possession. When I went to BCT, I knew about the basics, but did have to learn a new sighting technique, as the sights on the .22 were different than the M-14 in Basic. I would like to believe that the early "hip-shooting" style my Dad taught us was put to good use in the Land of the Live-fire Exercise.

One pre-Christmas time, we were supposed to earn some of our own spending money, money that we would then spend on others' gifts. But the payoff of selling tons of Christmas cards, in a very sparsely populated neighborhood, where most of our neighbors were of the Mexican persuasion, and couldn't speak much English, and had even less use for English-only Christmas cards, I earned a matched pair of The Lone Ranger pistols, complete with semi-genuine leather holsters, and two whole boxes of caps! And a color photo of the LR to boot!!

I too mourn the erosion of the 2nd Amendment. Most of the weapons in my possession were acquired in ways that can never be traced, all legal I hasten to add. Hopefully never, but there is no guarantee that we will not see a tyrannical government here that needs to be overthrown, just as Jefferson et. al. warned.