“(I)n terms of the (Boy Scouts’) squirt gun rules: Why can’t kids shoot each other with a stream of water? Because it’s harmless? Because it’s good clean fun? Because it’s a time-honored thing for kids to do? Or is it because of a sort of blind belief that if we outlaw every activity that involves boys being boys—even an activity with the word ‘Boy’ in its name—somehow we will have triumphed over original sin and avoided all possible lawsuits?” – Lenore Skenazy in Boy Scouts Can’t Squirt Squirt Guns at Each Other and Must Use Goggles [at reason.com]
The goal is to turn boys into thumb sucking beta males. It won’t work.
In some areas it’s working swimmingly.
There always have been thumb sucking beta males and there always will be, but you can’t turn an alpha male into a beta male, no matter how much you scowl at him for playing with water pistols or how he eats his pop tart.
As if the Boys Scouts aren’t already seeing a reduction in membership with each passing year. I had a blast in Scouting as a yoot. But my boys both wanted nothing to do with it. Trying to turn them into Girl Scouts isn’t the answer.
Big Sister is watching you!
I would say political correctness has gone to far but we’re 20 years past that. On a side note, when I meet parents who proclaim “I don’t let my children play with war toys” like squirt guns or cap guns, I tell them that my mom did the same thing, I have 47 actual firearms (before the series of boating accidents) I think it’s called a compensatory complex, their reactions are priceless.
And that is why I’m hopeful for the future of the 2A…
Just to piss their statist parents off they’ll have a Libertarian bent.
What about dodge ball, volley ball, badminton, tennis, baseball, football, and basketball? Don’t they hurl a projectile more powerful than a water stream at someone in those games? They might get hurt. so let’s also ban them as well. That leaves golf. I’m riding the fence on that one. I guess it’s okay as long as everyone is wearing a helmet, or at least a tinfoil hat. Oh wait, I forgot about soccer…hmmm, never mind.
No golf’s bad too. We’re just gonna let people run around with an arsenal of unregulated blunt force trauma inflicting clubs? What if that person goes off the reservation and wades into a crowd of people killing people? Fire up the “liberal banning device” and gets us some safUR
Tiger Woods is a prime example. He knows all about what damage golf clubs can inflict.
Any sport where someone can be declared a winner over someone else is on their list of things to ban.
There fixed it for you.
I’m pretty sure that dodge ball has been banned at some schools.
Crab-people.
Time to call in Kyle, Mr. Garrison, and Mr. Slave.
The author of this article is awesome;
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=free+range+kids
The whole “Free Range Kids” movement is awesome. Today parents can get arrested for simply allowing their kids walk down the street to get an ice cream on their own. Hell, some communities have banned ice cream trucks altogether. I keep hoping parents finally wise up and wrestle control back to them instead allow the state and PC groups take over their whole lives.
I wonder if a boy scout not wearing a uniform (off duty) can still actually have fun with larger water balloons (ones that actually break) and squirt each other with water by means of a squirt gun or otherwise.
We’ve already talked about this. We forsee a lot of “impromptu” family / non official scouting events with our troop and pack.
I’m surprised the free market hasn’t come up with a better solution than the scouts for parents of non-metrosexual children. Need some former Army Ranger or Marine Recon dude to start a Boy Rangers group. A sort of charter scouting deal.
It has.
http://Www.traillifeusa.com
My experience with the Scouts was it being increasingly dominated by sons of single mothers looking to find them male role models (or to get away from them for a few hours). Hard to provide male role modeling when there are so few fathers available in a given troop. By the time I Eagled, it was mostly a bunch of drugged up ADHD complexes and their mothers (who were content to brow beat the remaining men in the name of safety cuddling)
I should have known they were crab people
One has to ask why. My twins at 4 years, took spray bottles, without direction and deep within their brain stems, engaged in an epic water fight. My daughter’s superior eye hand coordination against her brothers speed and aggression. The sisterhood won the day.
Against this backdrop, society works to impose its collective will hoping to modify our DNA. The solution is to remove your children from Boy Scouts, let the organization keep their merit badges, uniforms and social construct.
Like it or not, we are predators at our core. We master our environment and kill for food and self defense. We think we’re so civilized today, but to try to socialize our genetic heritage out of us will always be a losing proposition.
The actual DNA modification is coming, don’t worry about that. Once they find that pesky free will gene we’ll finally have Utopia. Course then the Morlocks will eat us. Or well eat the Enui.
Having my own .22lr pump action rifle at 11 years old I could shoot any time I wanted. Driving a big wheel tractor five miles down the road and back hauling bins of apples at the same age. Actually riding a bicycle without a helmet.
Getting into a fight in junior high and no cops were called or suspensions made, we just sat down with the principal, had a talking to and then we went on to our next class.
We could carry a pocket knife while at school and we could use it to sharpen our pencils while in class. We actually had recess every hour and played dodge ball among other sports.
How fast things have changed, and not for the better. There is a reason societies collapse into dark ages. Liberal/Progressives, destroyers of cultures, creators of chaos.
Vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore.
Everything that is fun for children but has an element of risk is being removed from society. No wonder childhood obesity rates have risen dramatically.
And depression, and “ADHD.”
If the BSA only knew what we did on scout outings back in the 90’s.
It’s funny when you think about. How many of you were Eagle Scouts? BSA teaches many things from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts and that is being a good person, hard worker, and a MAN. Not something in between a man and a woman. Every activity is planned with a purpose. It is a safe environment that should be free from abuse, teasing, and harm. They learn all about safe shooting. They shoot shotgun, rifle (.22lr) and also learn archery, with merit badges for all three. the BSA has a 100 year old tradition of excellence and service. Don’t think they train boys to be girly men. the military and other government agencies take notice of Eagle Scouts because of their character. They are an elite group of men who are men and not sissy Whiners who shy away from challenges or troubles.
Do you know of another organization that goes shooting, hiking, and camping several times a year and is not a shooting or hunting organization?
Boys will be boys and boys will have fun. It is perfectly ideal to have policies that keep boys from participating in activities that could result in boys going too far and getting into trouble and resulting in mental or physical harm to a child.
Is it worse to have this policy or for the Government to FORCE BSA to have Homosexual Scout Leaders? You will see me March, write letters, picket and not support BSA with donations if they get rid of their shooting merit badges and activities. This policy is not a step in that direction. This is not an organization that follows the moral or philosophy of modern society. They have a traditional spirit and pride in American values and National Pride.
Think you nailed it. Culling boys trek to manhood by social engineering.
In a society that reveres women to the point where it is entertained and enthralled by vagina monologues and encourages rape hoaxes, boys are viewed as a genetic disease.
For many years, the BSA has tolerated pedophiles in its midst. Not content with turning boys into girls in private, it now seeks to do the same publicly.
I think my input here might prove valuable.
When I was very young, we had very few toy guns in the house, and we were expected to treat them with the same respect as actual firearms, to include not pointing them at people. Why? Because we had REAL guns in the house, and we were taught to use them from an early age, in a safe manner. The experience with toy guns was part of that… Dad still has the youth pellet rifle he had to make a new stock for because the original stock was entirely too long for a five year old. I know for a fact that he had a .22 rifle picked out for me well before he had any idea whether I was going to be born a boy or a girl.
And even in this kind of environment, there was a time and place for everyone to tool up with squirt guns and water-balloons and soak the crap out of each other.
Requiring safety goggles though? Not shooting water guns at other people? Making water balloons ineffective? Actually may be a good thing, depending on what kind of water ordinance that your participants are packing. If the biggest water gun on the field is the Super Soaker 50 (pictured), which is a solid dependable water pistol and as game changing to water guns as the AK-47 was to rifles, then you might get away without them.
If some spoiled little brat pulls out the 3000 model, though, or if your players are a bunch of yard ape bullies who are prone to holding a younger kid down and doing him waterboarding style (which sounds a lot more like some of the jerks I knew when I was in Boy Scouts), you might want some basic eye protection and to limit the tension in the water balloons… in other words, the Boy Scouts of America is getting their hands tied in how much they’re allowed to discipline and exclude children for ANY reason, and the rules they’re setting are to limit the organization’s liability in an ever more litigious society. Don’t blame them for reacting to try and protect both themselves and the kids they are often held responsible for from the parents who refuse to accept their responsibilities.
It was already going to heck in the 60’s BS’s. The local troop went from dozens of kids to being disbanded in 4 years. Do your own thing and get high. And I hated the scouts. I liked the Cub Scouts just a few years before. BTW there are lots of alternatives-just get into a good evangelical church…
The saddest part is that this general guideline is something that is decades old and it’s based on the 3 NRA rules (4 rules for those of us who teach Cooper’s rules). Being a BSA shooting sports instructor and having managed 100+ kids during camp, I can have some appreciation of the issue where facsimile water guns are concerned. Especially with the Cubs just learning.
That said, I don’t think they had today’s super soaker style water guns in mind. There’s just no comparison between one of those and the toy 1911 water pistols of old. A super soaker has as much in common with an actual firearm as a pistol grip spray nozzle on a garden hose.
What’s really interesting is the response from the fellow Scouters on the BSA site. It is overwhelming ridicule and outright defiance. There is a principle in Scouts that “All Scouting is local.” National may be getting a reminder in this.
BSA is going down, it’s a fact. All the leaders of the past left, and the new leaders are, left.
Actually, the overwhelming response from the local to National has been, “Up yours!”