{"id":448,"date":"2018-03-19T01:31:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T01:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2018\/03\/19\/teens-with-guns-can-be-good-thing\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T18:28:45","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T18:28:45","slug":"teens-with-guns-can-be-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=448","title":{"rendered":"Teens With Guns Can Be A Good Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:7566,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.journalnow.com\\\/news\\\/local\\\/more-than-shooting-team-athletes-compete-at-district-high-school\\\/article_1a7cf705-4810-5b4f-9f23-30a8b8624a4d.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/journalnow.com\\\/news\\\/local\\\/more-than-shooting-team-athletes-compete-at-district-high-school\\\/article_1a7cf705-4810-5b4f-9f23-30a8b8624a4d.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.journalnow.com\/news\/local\/more-than-shooting-team-athletes-compete-at-district-high-school\/article_1a7cf705-4810-5b4f-9f23-30a8b8624a4d.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Winston-Salem Journal had a story today about a bunch of teens and near teens with guns<\/a>. In fact, there were over 1,200 of them ranging in age from 12 to 18. And it was safe and controlled and educational and fun.<\/p>\n<p>It was the District 7 Youth Hunter Education Skills Tournament and featured 72 teams competing to be in the state tournament. Two teams get automatic bids and the remainder hope that their scores are high enough to win one of the 22 at-large spots in the 40 team state tournament. The event is sponsored by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and was held at the Hunting Creek Preserve in Harmony, NC.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>To many, the district tournament may have come at a strange time \u2014 where the words \u201cteens\u201d and \u201cguns\u201d are inflammatory at best after the harrowing school shooting in Florida last month \u2014 but the teens who competed asserted that the tragedy does not define what they do.<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cThere will always be bad people who want to do bad things with guns, but that does not define us,\u201d said Spencer Ballus, one of the 52 members of Reagan High School\u2019s shooting team. \u201cEveryone here has a good head on their shoulders. We are conscientious, responsible and put safety first.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The teams competed in rifle, shotgun, archery, and orienteering with the cumulative score deciding the winners.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>But the tournament is largely apolitical \u2014 completed for the love of competition and the camaraderie that comes with being on a team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do it for fun because I like getting to compete with my friends,\u201d said Walkertown student Brandon Carrier, 12. \u201cI like rifle because it\u2019s something I grew up doing with my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(Spencer) Ballus, a senior at Reagan, has been practicing for the tournament since December and said he fell into the sport as a freshman in search of his niche.<\/p>\n<p>His specialty is rifle, where he has to hit a small target with a bull\u2019s-eye the size of a dime.<\/p>\n<p>The team practices from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday in a nearby Pfafftown farmer\u2019s field, doing occasional farmwork in exchange for use of the land.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d never really been into athletics, but I thought the team looked interesting,\u201d Ballus said. \u201cThe camaraderie is the best part. It was the best decision I could\u2019ve made.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think a parent of one of the competitors hit the nail on the head.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>\u201cIf we taught more about guns, I think we\u2019d have a lot less shootings,\u201d said parent Tony Bryant, whose son Cole Abbott competes on the Reagan team. \u201cInstead of just playing video games, this teaches the kids to respect guns. It\u2019s a wonderful thing.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nH\/T Nathan C.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Winston-Salem Journal had a story today about a bunch of teens and near teens with guns. In fact,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1107,523,1108,1109],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hunter-safety","tag-ncwrc","tag-school-shooting-teams","tag-youth-hunter-education-skills-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11377,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions\/11377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}