Richard Cohen ignorant about guns and schools

April 11, 2013

By John Seiler

One of the more insufferable things about living in Washington, D.C., a hideous place I barely survived between 1982 and 1987, was being subjected to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. His knee jerked faster than Pele’s.

He’s still at it. A recent column on gun control was titled, “Why not arm the kids?” It’s supposed to be ironic.

But even though he’s 72, he doesn’t know that public schools once commonly sponsored gun clubs. Back when I attended it, 1970-73, Wayne Memorial High School in Michigan sponsored such a club. I didn’t join it because I was in other clubs. And my father, a captain of ordnance in the U.S. Army in World War II who knew weapons like Heifitz knew his violin, took my brother and me shooting every couple of months. So we learned from a real expert.

I still remember the gun club kids walking around school with their rifles. Given how easy it was to get ammo back then, they could have blown away a lot of people if they wanted to. They didn’t. They were good kids.

But if some psycho had opened fire with guns like in Columbine back in 1999, the gun club kids would have fired back and ended the massacre posthaste. Maybe that’s one reason such mass school killings were more rare back then.

Unfortunately, because of anti-gun hysteria in recent years, almost all gun clubs have been expelled from school.

So Cohen thinks he’s being ironic, but isn’t. He’s just being ahistorical. Now that he’s brought it up, let’s bring back gun clubs in every high school in the country.

Even Secretary of State John Kerry belonged to the Rifle Club at his high school.