When I was 12, there was an NRA sponsored shooting club in the town where I lived. We shot .22 rifles, during the school year, I think on Wednesday evenings. I know it was at least one day a week. There were four neighborhood boys that went and shot our rifles. One parent would carpool us to the Ford Garage in town, where the 50 foot range was in the basement. It cost 25 cents, and you got a half box of .22 long rifle ammo. Each kid shot 5 targets, prone, sitting, kneeling and offhand, and one warm up target, five shots each. In the middle of winter, dark comes early, so when we were done shooting, if it wasn't raining, we would have to walk home, which meant four 12 year old kids walked through town armed with rifles, after dark, and nobody said or did anything, and no cops stopped to talk to us. That would have been around 1949. When I turned 16, I saved my money, and bought a Colt .22 caliber Huntsman semi auto pistol. There was a three day wait, and my parents knew what I was doing, so I don't know if the store owner called my folks or what, but I bought the pistol, and then went to the high sheriff and got a permit to carry it concealed in my A model ford coup, so it wouldn't be stolen out of the car when I was at school. During hunting season, if you were going hunting after school, you took your gun to school, and left it in the car. I had two or three jobs, cleaning apartments, delivering papers and yard work stand out. Most of the money I made went for two things, gas and ammunition, .22 long rifle and 12 ga. shotgun. The 4 cylinder A didn't take lots of gas at .35 cents a gallon, but even at a penny a shot, there never was enough ammo, so I also took up archery, because I could make my own arrows and use them over and over again. Oh yes, I didn't live in Idaho, or Wyoming, that was in San Luis Obispo, California. This is history, not politics, but I have to stop now or it will step over the line.
