Understand that everyone suffers from some degree of this and the world up to this point was still built on procrastination. “If it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would get done”
Thank you for your opinion and service. I too served and was privileged be trained during relative peace time but also had the liberal budget thanks to the GWOT. Our country doesn’t really give out medals for just shooting, but my competence and appreciation in marksmanship is owed to the wonderful cadre I had teaching me, and their passion in marksmanship in addition to the weapon system.
I’m not going to deny your point on killing. That is one application of firearms, also a powerful one, but I don’t feel that’s a reason to absolutely prohibit them for the common folk. As we’re both on HN I’m sure you also don’t “get” why folks just love some things like I do.
For me it’s the history, appreciation of the engineering, and my now civilian hobbies of hunting and competition shooting. They are one of many things that bring me joy that I would hate to lose in my healthy years.
Guns are cool. You should give them a try, I recommend at an outdoor range too. America is one of the last countries with a liberal mindset (in the true definition) that allows private ownership to exist. Like driving fast, flying or diving, there are few pleasures in life that match firing guns outdoors.
As a Canadian who never grew up with standardized testing, and also graduating with an IB cohort (from a public school) whom none of them actually went to the US (just took their boosted canadian grade equivalents or went somewheres in europe), I really fail to see how this could be that bad of a thing. The first year, or semester even is a great filter that cuts a significant amount of folks where school isn't for them.
I can also see this as a move like china did to kill tutorial services to give kids back their teen years. In a land where school is so expensive I think its worth it to spend summers working a job (and all the merits that come with that) to better prep for possibly the biggest financial decision ever for a still developing brain.
I don’t relate to the active destruction part but I enjoy looking at the twisted metals and frames of car wrecks and the like. For me it’s the reconstruction of the aftermath