{"id":2011,"date":"2015-05-21T20:58:28","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T02:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2016-11-07T09:33:14","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T15:33:14","slug":"lay-off-the-boy-scouts-wouldja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/lay-off-the-boy-scouts-wouldja.html","title":{"rendered":"Lay off the Boy Scouts, would’ja?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

National Review, which does try to be sensible for all that my left-of-center readers might think otherwise, thinks they\u2019ve got a new scandal brewing. \u00a0The Boy Scouts, they say, are becoming a bunch of sissies, by banning water gun fights, or any sort of shooting (e.g., paintball) that\u2019s directed at another person rather than at a target. \u00a0 The @NRO twitter account is now trying to get a tweet<\/a> with an image with water guns and the text, \u201cFact: \u00a0The Boy Scouts just banned water-gun fights because squirt guns are \u2018simulated firearms.\u2019 \u00a0Share if you think that\u2019s ridiculous!\u201d shared and viral.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I have to say about that: \u00a0lay off the Scouts.<\/p>\n

The NR article<\/a> links to a blog post <\/a>at the Scouting<\/em> magazine website \u2014 it\u2019s a magazine I know well, what with my husband being a Scout leader \u2014 which itself got a lot of angry comments, with\u00a0the same \u201cBoy Scouts is turning into a bunch of P.C. sissies\u201d opinion.<\/p>\n

But \u2014 look:<\/p>\n

Boy Scouts do a lot of shooting sports. \u00a0Rifle is one of the standard first-year camp merit badges, and shotgun in the second year. \u00a0At the Cub Scout level, the BB gun shooting is always one of the highlights of the weekend camps. \u00a0My husband, last year or so, had planned to attend a training session to be a shooting range supervisor, so he could take the boys to the local camp on a Saturday. \u00a0One of the annual scout outings is to the national guard base at Marseilles, where they do more actual and simulated shooting.<\/p>\n

And safety is crucial. \u00a0You can\u2019t rely on boys using common sense in the way that you can assume it of adults \u2014 heck, even adults have been known to fire their guns unintentionally. \u00a0The number one rule is never to point a gun at anyone, ever, and, though it may seem to be going way overboard to prohibit waterguns, at the same time, for an organization as at-risk, in liability terms, as the Boy Scouts are, I\u2019m not going to get upset about it, if safety experts believe that boys are best able to handle real firearms safely if they are drilled into following the same rules all the time. \u00a0I\u2019m perfectly fine with boys, in the context of a scout outing, settling for dousing each other with hoses or buckets.<\/p>\n

By the way: \u00a0Boy Scouts also learn to build campfires and keep them going, and how to use an axe and a pocketknife safely. \u00a0They also tent-camp and cook and clean up afterwards, and learn about KYBOs. \u00a0And they are boys<\/strong>, I\u2019ll remind you. \u00a0Now, granted, the closest I\u2019ve been to a scout outing is the family picnic, or the drop-off before an outing, when the boys are all over-excited and chasing each other in the parking lot. \u00a0(Pick-up, on Sundays, is a lot more subdued because the boys are generally suffering from lack of sleep.) \u00a0But I\u2019ve heard stories: \u00a0never any injuries, but adults, and older scouts, working overtime to keep it that way.<\/p>\n

Let me also remind you that Scouts are having a hard enough time as it is, these days. \u00a0Locally, four of the Chicago area councils have had to merge into one (we presume for financial reasons \u2014 only the council on the wealthy North Shore was able to keep its independence), and each year, we get the fundraising appeal at which we are reminded that the United Way ended its funding of Scouts and we need to make up the difference \u2014 which I presume to be on account of the no-gay-leaders issue. \u00a0Right now, Scouts are taking it from both sides for having tried to split the difference on that issue, and are suffering from a general lack of interest from kids who prefer travel sports, parents who fear pedophile leaders and are indifferent to the outdoors, and donors who would rather support \u201cGirlpower\u201d-type programs.<\/p>\n

So save your outrage for another target, please. \u00a0Is the risk of doing real harm to the Scouts really worth a few more pageviews?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Review, which does try to be sensible for all that my left-of-center readers might think otherwise, thinks they\u2019ve got a new scandal brewing. \u00a0The Boy Scouts, they say, are becoming a bunch of sissies, by banning water gun fights, or any sort of shooting (e.g., paintball) that\u2019s directed at another person rather than at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[490],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boy-scouts"],"yoast_head":"\nLay off the Boy Scouts, would'ja?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"National Review, which does try to be sensible for all that my left-of-center readers might think otherwise, thinks they've got a new scandal brewing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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