Did your high school have an indoor shooting range?

Guess I was lucky because mine did.

I imagine they are not politically correct in some areas.

Mine didn't.
All of our shootin' was done in the parking lots & surrounding neighborhoods.

I'm serious........

The one & only time I've been robbed at gunpoint was behind
my Jr.High School, out by the Football Field.

School days........

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Ogy

No we did'nt have any shooting ranges on school grounds but more than once i brought a favorite or new rifle to show a high school teacher. Try that nowadays and you probably get Swat, Homeland
Security, FBI, and every major News organization coming down on
you.


chuck

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They hold no Quarter

Mine didn't but my grandfather was the nightwatchman at Robert E. Lee High School in Thomaston, GA. When I was around 6 or 7 (mid 1950s), I would sometimes go to work with him in the evening and walk with him when he made his rounds. One of the places he had to punch his clock was the upstairs rifle range in the ROTC building. They used .22s back then and had a beautiful indoor range. They were also perennial State Champions back in those days; so much so that the city limits sign mentioned the team. It's now Upson-Lee High School and they are on their second different high school location since then and they still have a rifle team although they switched to air rifles in 1992. But at least they still have boys and girls shooting.

CW

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There was a time when most, if not all, high schools that had a Jr. ROTC program had a shooting range in the school, as colleges and universities that had a ROTC program. It was common to take the bus to another school, while carrying a cased rifle, if you had a match at that school. No one even blinked.

Of course this was in the days of "Common Sense" (LORD, how I miss them!!!) instead of brainless "zero tolerance" that absolves school administrators of any responsibility to think.

I got my original hunter safety card and gun safety training in a high school indoor range. The school was built about 1955 (my late dad helped build it), and I took my class about 1965. I think it was the last high school built in Utah with a range.

At some point, the school district converted the range to a garage for the drivers ed. cars.

Nope. not here. not ever haha only time i brought guns into school is after i graduated and the school cop asked me to bring some of my handguns in to help him do a presentation on firearm safety.

and no noone shot themselves in the foot during this :-p

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6906,6904,g23,g21,RIA1911,40c

Gosh I guess I was lucky.

I grew up in Alaska and went to two different high schools. Each had an indoor range. Fifty feet in I remember right.

We had some high dollar 22lr target rifles with peep sights that were tremendously accurate.

It was there that I got my first NRA Hunters Safety card. But I had already been hunting for a few years.

Needless to say I took the course more than once. But the best shot by far was a girl!

haha don't be surprised. i used to volunteer at a local gun range as an assistant to a NRA tactical instructor. my best student who could clear a 5 room building in under 1:15 was a 16 year old 90lb soaking wet girl. She used a Bushmaster M-4 and Colt Delta Elite to do so. haha

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6906,6904,g23,g21,RIA1911,40c

At my High School? No!

The closest example I can come up with was during my first year in college. I was there on an Air Force scholarship... but was marching with an Army Precision Drill Team (the AF didn't have a team at that school). For drill practice, I used to ride my bicycle to a city park with a Springfield '03 slung around my chest. Best part was that I had to ride past a local police station. Good thing Open carry was legal back then in AZ...


Sounds like the Anchorage borough school district! In the four years my family lived in Anchorage, I think I attended three different elementary schools (they were doing a lot of building in Spenard back in those days).

Hastings High School had an indoor range in the basement. the target rifles were heavy barrel Remington's. I don't remember the model number. the ammo was Winchester target.

When I was a kid, a long time ago in Kentucky, the schools had an organization called the Junior Conservation Club. In my school it was run by the local game warden. We had a little outdoor rifle range next door to the school. It was permissible to bring your 22 rifle to school on the school bus as long as you gave the bolt to the bus driver.

Ed

Many of our high schools had 22 ranges in the basement and were an integrated part of the cadet and militia programs in Canada. By the mid-60's after the socialists came to power funding for many of these programs were ended and further capital improvements were made contingent on "better utilization" of exisiting spaces. Many of the ranges were turned into records storage and the like in order to qualify for continued funding.

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Existimo ergo sum armis

My high school had a Jr. ROTC range in the basement for .22's. I think they were Remington 513's.

We didn't fire the M-1 Garand unless we went to summer camp. (I did.)

I attended H.S. in the early 70's. I am not aware of any of the H.S.'s in our area that had ranges. This was in a medium sized city in Ga.

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Oh, I am so jealous now. All we had was sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

A local H.S. was just completely rebuilt INCLUDING THE ROTC range in the school.

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NRA Pistol/Rifle Inst. RSO

Decatur High had a 50' range beneath a basketball court in the north building. Rifles were 1922 Springfields plus 5 Winchester 52Cs. To get a WInchester you had to outshoot someone who had one. Took me a couple of months to get mine. Kept it until graduation.

Regards,

Tam 3

Yes, the range was built by non-school money in a space under the auditorium and is STILL IN USE TODAY. Our pistol club meets there every Tues. and has a bullseye league there all winter. The High School has a rifle club, and a rifle team with varsity letters issued and have been state champion's the last two years in addition to many past championships since 1934. The club/rifle team receives no money from the school district, and relies strictly on donations and fund raisers. We have a fairly active Friends of NRA committee and a pretty fair amount of grants have been secured via the FNRA.

The range consists of 20 firing points with trolly type return target carriers and a NRA spec air handling system. Our pistol club buys all the targets needed for the Rifle club/Team. They shoot Anschutz in both .22 and .177 air rifle in competition, and a variety of anschutz, remington, winchester rifles by club members.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

My school did not have a shooting range its to bad if they did i might have enjoyed going to school more.

I was on the rifle team briefly my freshman year of high school, Shadle Park HS, Spokane, WA, in the late '70's. The shooting range was in one of the maintenance/utilities tunnels in the basement. One of my classmates' dad was an English teacher and he was the team coach.

We didn't have one in the school. The JROTC team used the range in the National Guard Armory that was about a block from the high school.

We shot Winchester and Remington target rifles, 52s and 40Xs, I think.
Great rifles. I never shot up to their capabilities but learned stuff I still use.

Was this Decatur, Georgia? If so, you shot on the same range my father did. Back then it was Decatur Boy's High. He was Captain of the team there and coach of the Decatur Girl's High team. He said most of the girls were excellent shooters.

You may have even shot some of the same guns--he still speaks very fondly of the M22s.

Some time in late '43 Uncle Sam decided he needed Dad more than Decatur Boy's High did. He finished HS after the war.

We had an article in Sundays Arkansas Democrat Gazette about the Huntsville Ar high school trap shooting team, it seems a lot of High Schools are fielding a trap shooting team with competion other schools, this can only help our firearms cause. Jeff

Absolutely, St John's Military Academy, 1965-69. It had an excellent underground/indoor range. We had a small bore rifle team, issue weapon was Anschutz, but I used my Winchester 52 and generally outshot the other guys. My 52 was made in 1939, and was my uncle's gun, also on the SJMA rifle team. He used it when he won the 1943 National Championship, along with the Team National Championship. That rifle is one of my most treasured possessions. The range is still there, and still in use, although I believe a switch to air rifles was made due to EPA concerns over the ventilation system. I returned in 2009 (could 40 years have passed so quickly?) and did shoot an air rifle on the range, it was quite nostalgic. Wish I could have used the 52.

Decatur, Ga. it was. The basketball court was in the former Girls High building. I have been advised that it burned in 1963. I graduated in 1962. Took me 20 years to get my own Springfield.

Regards,

Tam 3

I went to Collingdale, Pa HS. We did not have a shooting range. We did have a hunting club at the school. I belonged to a gun club called the Delaware County Field & Stream, still do! They had an arrangement with a neighboring school for their Jr members to shoot our 22 rifles in the school cafeteria, ever Wednesday night in the winter. This was in the late 1950 or early 1960's. It was a 50 feet range. Can you imagine shooting so close to where food was served, today. My rifle was a Winchester 75, that I still have today. Many of the schools in Delaware County did have ranges. Even Swarthmore College had a range in the late 50's, it was on the second floor of one of their buildings and my father had access to it. The building has since been torn down.

Had a nice one in the student union at college, but not at high school. Had a planetarium at high school, tho!

Byrd High school, Shreveport,La. Did have a rifle range affiliated with ROTC program. I kept my 870 Remington in the trunk of my car. Duck hunted a lot in those days before and after school. Mr. Graves who patrolled the parking lot on grounds was 100 % aware of this .. NO rules against guns on campus in 1956-1960. Whoa am I that old?

Regards

Bill

We didn't have a shooting range, but we did have a smoking area.

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Soli Deo Gloria

That's really neat. I'll tell the Dad.

He said the ROTC and rifle training helped get him through the war...

Sure did.......Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro VA. Go figure...It was an Army JROTC school.

Just out of curiosity, what model Springfield? I have an old Springfield Model 50 (Springfield Jr.) from around 1930. Pretty sure it used to be one of the R.E. Lee team guns but was sold by the school when they upgraded to newer .22s.

CW

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Jesse Jones High School in Houston had a 50' range in the ROTC building. I think most of the high schools in Houston did at that time.

My junior year, I was coach of the girls rifle team. I recall it being a very good year indeed. The girls used 513Ts and the boys team used 40Xs.

Straightshooter; its a 3 digit S/N B suffix 1922 with a 1936 barrel that was modified to M2 specs probably when the Armory installed the barrel.

Regards

Tam 3

Yea...it was called the hallway

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Forum consigliere

I think I used to work there.

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Soli Deo Gloria

Abraham Clark High School, Roselle NJ. Had a fifty foot indoor range in the basement. Many a morning I stood outside waiting for the doors to the school to open with my Stevens 414 Armory slung on my shoulder. Still have that gun. Imagine standing outside a high school today with a firearm in plain sight?

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Lost in Penn's Woods

In Southern California no less. There was an ROTC range under the auditorium. I think they had Winchester M-52's. It was a brand new school in 1959.

Slightly off topic, but I went to Chattanooga a couple of weeks ago to shoot some sporting clays--when we got there the parking lot was overflowing.

There were 2 or 3 local high school teams there having a skeet competition--girls and boys on the same teams as far as I could tell.

And those kids could shoot.