# High schools and gun clubs
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 16, 2024, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327 "2024-07-16T15:37:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2024, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/21 "2024-07-16T19:47:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> And it’s also a fairly standard option at Scout camp
I thought it was pretty much mandatory, myself. Every Scout camp I’ve ever been to or my kids have been to (nine that I can think of) has a 50 yd rifle range, and most have a shotgun range as well.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/22 "2024-07-16T19:48:48Z")
No idea what people get up to in rural whatever, but the kind of after-school gun club I am familiar with is what @glee was describing, basically doing things like practicing making tight groups on bullseye targets, and it was also supervised by military-type people. So it was more like Olympic-type shooting and nothing to do with hunting, is what I am saying.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2024, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/23 "2024-07-16T19:52:26Z")
It might be mandatory for the camp to have it as an option (I don’t know; I’ve never set up a Scout camp), but it’s definitely not mandatory for scouts attending the camp. It’s expected that a Scout at camp will earn some number of merit badges while at camp, but there are a great many merit badges to choose from, so not everyone gets riflery.
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### Author:  [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2024, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/24 "2024-07-16T20:23:33Z")
My high school in North Shore suburban Chicago had a gun range in the basement by the weight room, indoor track, and racquetball court. That part of the building dated from the 1950s. The room was probably only wide enough for two or at most three bays, and by the late 1990s it was instead full of exercise bikes, old awful exercise bikes with free-spinning flywheels and no brakes, gearing, or freehub, just a friction resistance dial. Those were depressing days in gym class. I remember being surprised a gun range existed in the school but chalked it up to the 1950s being the 1950s. There was still a big pile of sand on the floor under the angled metal wall in back to catch the bullets though. Kinda creepy they didn’t bother to clean that out.
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### Author:  [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/25 "2024-07-16T21:31:52Z")
> [@running\_coach](#):
>
> By any chance, was this the Lockheed/NASA in Mountain View, Ca?
> One of the counselors at my Jr High (74-75) started a rifle club and took us to the range there.
No, it was at the Lewis Research Center at the Cleveland airport. The Rocky River valley there is about 50 ft deep and the backstop was the cliffs themselves. Bullets would lodge in the sandstone cliffs.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2024, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/26 "2024-07-16T21:33:24Z")
Ah, OK. Ours was an indoor range.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/27 "2024-07-17T00:28:22Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> [In 2018 there were only 2000 such clubs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_school_gun_clubs_and_teams_in_the_United_States)
Looks like that’s clubs and teams (in case the OP only wants to know about the former), and includes clay target league (which appears to be growing.) And maybe air rifles.
For context, there are ~30k high schools in the US, so this doesn’t seem the most popular offering.
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### Author:  [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/28 "2024-07-17T01:28:39Z")
There’s a fellow in the news lately who apparently according to the news “was not allowed onto the high school rifle team because of his poor aim”.
What would a rifle team be for? Is there an organized high-school level statewide or national competition? As I understand, a club is for everyone and a team is for the best to compete against other schools or organizations.
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### Author:  [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/29 "2024-07-17T01:56:49Z")
My high school (Toronto, graduated 1989) was rumoured to have a gun range in the basement, but given the building was constructed in 1919 and named after a WWI Field Marshall that isn’t surprising.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/30 "2024-07-17T01:59:17Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> I thought it was pretty much mandatory, myself. Every Scout camp I’ve ever been to or my kids have been to (nine that I can think of) has a 50 yd rifle range, and most have a shotgun range as well.
Shotgun? Back in the 60s we only allowed .22. And it wasnt mandatory, altho I think every scout at that camp had to have a 1 hour gun safety course.
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### Author:  [@Kedikat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kedikat)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/31 "2024-07-17T04:21:37Z")
I went to a couple public high schools. No gun clubs. I went to a private school for a year and enjoyed the gun club. Also rowing and archery. I am still a good shot with gun and bow. I also was very well taught the dangers and safe handling of them.
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### Author:  [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/32 "2024-07-17T05:30:52Z")
> [@md-2000](#):
>
> What would a rifle team be for? Is there an organized high-school level statewide or national competition
Many junior teams at the Nationals at Camp Perry.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/33 "2024-07-17T05:39:29Z")
I was in Navy JROTC in high school. We had a rifle team and a shooting range attached to the classroom, and there was a unit in year 1 on basic firearms handling and safety. We used air rifles that shot pellets.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/34 "2024-07-17T06:05:56Z")
> [@md-2000](#):
>
> What would a rifle team be for? Is there an organized high-school level statewide or national competition?
Yes, there are competitions. When I was a university student, I shot on the varsity rifle team. We competed against other universities, but also in open competitions, where no school affiliation was required. Still, we entered anyway, and competed as individuals.
> [@FinsToTheLeft](#):
>
> My high school (Toronto, graduated 1989) was rumoured to have a gun range in the basement …
My Toronto high school, which opened in 1936, had a range in the basement. My father went that school in the mid-1940s, and remembered it. By the time I attended that same school in the 1970s, it was long closed, and the space used for storage.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2024, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/35 "2024-07-17T14:33:02Z")
I graduated in 1982 from an urban high school in Los Angeles. There were gang shootings in the vicinity on occasion. Guns with live ammo on campus would be a bad idea.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2024, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/36 "2024-07-19T06:15:17Z")
My high school had a trap club (graduated 1979), they still had it when my siblings graduated in the mid-80’s and early 90’s, and they still had it when my niece graduated in 2019 (she was President), and they still have it now my nephew is a member of it.
They also have a mandatory speech class in 10th grade where each student has to give a speech once per week. Students are still allowed to give speeches on their rifles and shotguns.
When I and my brother did it we could keep them in our cars but now they have to be secured in the principals office.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2024, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/37 "2024-07-19T07:17:17Z")
No I meant that it is seemingly mandatory for the camps to have shooting ranges, not for the scouts to shoot.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2024, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/38 "2024-07-19T13:13:26Z")
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> Students are still allowed to give speeches on their rifles and shotguns.
As in, speaking about them? I don’t see why that wouldn’t be allowed, anywhere, unless the speech was required to be on some specific topic or category of topic (and even then, I could very well see a required category that could fit, like “give a speech on one of your hobbies”).
Unless there’s some other meaning to “giving a speech on a gun”?
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2024, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/39 "2024-07-19T13:20:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> > [@pkbites](#):
> >
> > Students are still allowed to give speeches on their rifles and shotguns.
>
> As in, speaking about them? I don’t see why that wouldn’t be allowed
From @pkbites’s next sentence, I assume he was implying that students brought in the guns to use as visual aids when giving the speech.
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-schools-and-gun-clubs/1004327/40 "2024-07-19T13:24:03Z")
> [@Ruken](#):
>
> Looks like that’s clubs and teams (in case the OP only wants to know about the former), and includes clay target league (which appears to be growing.) And maybe air rifles.
>
> For context, there are ~30k high schools in the US, so this doesn’t seem the most popular offering.
Yeah, I would indeed have expected clubs/teams to not be widely present in schools for economic and liability reasons. Buy I am a little amused here at the apparent unawareness by some of their existence as a legit sport activity.
> [@md-2000](#):
>
> As I understand, a club is for everyone and a team is for the best to compete against other schools or organizations.
…and people unfamiliar with the matter, who write news items, will mix things up and call one the other.
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