A well known psychologist and best selling author, Nathaniel Branden, is a shooter and gun collector. He once told me that the "psychological profile" of shooters is very different from the popular conception. He said it would make an intersting book on how gunowners, one of the most vilified groups in history, are actually among the most courteous, supportive and law abiding groups of people in modern society.
Just look at the issue of sports violence. Drunkeness, fist fights, vandalism and other anti-social behavior are so prevalent in connection with the major sports and even high school and college athletics that this conduct is accepted as routine and is only news when it involves rioting on a major level, such as when mobs rioted in downtown Los Angeles after a Lakers game and college riots in MIchigan after a football game.
When was the last time you heard of any rioting, fist fighting or drunken rowdiness in connection with the shooting sports? Shooters, as a group, are among the most civil, courteous and law abiding groups of people today.
Over the years I have talked to many teenagers who were solicited to buy drugs on campus from their friendly high school drug dealers and who told me that the identities of campus drug dealers was common knowledge among most students.(Teenagers are the last people in the world to keep a secret.) I have always wonderd why campus drug dealers are so well known to everyone except narcotics detectives?
I have never known anyone in the shooting sports who was into drugs and have never heard of a teenager (or anyone else) who was solicited to buy drugs in connection with the shooting sports. Amazing that parents who recoil in horror at the idea of their kids going shooting are perfectly OK with their going to rock concerts, football games, and high school dances where drugs and alcohol flow so freely and fist-fights and vandalism are so prevalent.
Alas, I preach to the choir.
