JoeBob

Regulate and/or tax ammunition to curb violence? Bull hocky! Bad guys don't practice. Only responsible gun-owners burn enough ammunition to feel any impact of onerous regulation and taxation. Impede the flow of ammunition only if you want to see innocent bystanders wounded.

What is the number one rule in a gunfight? Have a gun. Had one encounter at the remote takeout of a paddling trip with 8 scurvy looking motorcyclists. We had three men and three good-looking women. I had no weapon. My buddy's stainless revolver would have evened the odds. Out in the woods with 12 boys in my charge; would it not be irresponsible for me to NOT have a gun?

Lemme roll in a few hand grenades: Kicking a problem child out of your troop will probably guarantee your status as a target, even years down the road, if Scouting is important to the boy. Having a parent steady their child only goes so far. Wasn't Lanza's mom his first target? E61: "Teaching someone with impulse and anger issues to use a gun seems a bit irresponsible." As Basement observed, that's what the reporters are going to say. Okay. You have a boy who is borderline. You don't that think he'll survive the two 3 hour classes required to go on the shooting trip. He survives, scores well on the tests, and demonstrates good muzzle awareness during the safe handling drills. Although he sneaks off when he's not on the firing line and eats half of his patrol's food, he qualifies. (We always had an instructor within arms reach of him.) E61, lemme hear your version of the conversation telling him and his parents that he can't go on the shooting trip because he has no social skills... This boy may turn out great! But right now he scares me.

Eagle 732: GREAT articles. "Well, in 2004 we had a new all time record 48 dead in the schools from violence. How many killed by fire that year? Zero." But youve still got those fire sprinklers, those fire exit signs, fire hydrants outside, and fire trucks nearby! Are these fire guys crazy? Are these fire guys paranoid? NO! This fire guy is our A+ student! Because this fire guy has redundant, overlapping layers of protection, not a single kid has been killed by school fire in the last 50 years! But you try to prepare for violence the thing much more likely to kill our kids in schools, the thing hundreds of times more likely to kill our kids in schools and people think youre paranoid. They think youre crazy. ...Theyre in denial. I love this guy: Equip every cop in America with a patrol rifle. One chief of police, upon getting rifles for all his officers once said, If an active killer strikes in my town, the response time will be measured in feet per second.

This thread was spun from another thread. "Aspergers syndrome.....gives me pause for a number of reasons in the troop......" Yep. I've got one in the troop. No social skills. Aggressive (chased my son around with a sharp pencil), sullen, surly, unmotivated, brilliant. Helicopter mom went to SLT and ITOLs to get herself ASM status to enable more hovering. I'm all conflicted about this one: Con: Mom is a pain in the butt, with social skills only marginally better than her son. Pro: I'm sorta glad mom's around to sit on him. Con: This boy requires way more patience, time, and attention than ten other boys. Pro: This boy is the type that really could benefit from Scouting. Pro: His first trip with the troop was our annual shooting trip where he qualified for his rifle shooting merit badge. Con: Oh SH*T! We taught him to shoot. We had hoped that he wasn't crossing over into our troop from WeebII. Announced intentions were for him to go back to the troop he had come from; but he's ours now. I do know that I'll be extra nice and conciliatory whenever I have to hold him back or deny him advancement. He's been with us for ten months and still hasn't attained Tenderfoot. How do you teach character to a child who KNOWS that he is smarter than you, and only lights up when you hand him a loaded rifle? And I really don't want him to know where I live. Who else is in this boat? What are we gonna do? They don't pay me enough for this....

The 'Den Chief Handbook' seemed to be a good resource for our boy. It had games and activities that he could lead. The little guys really looked up to the real live Boy Scout in uniform at their meetings. The DC enjoyed working with younguns, and it was a welcome respite for the adults to be able to have conversation while the DC took charge for a spell.

I'm proposing a "Week of Rivers" to our PLC: Using NOC http://www.noc.com/whitewater-rafting/ we'll book five or six rafting trips one day after the other. Start cheap on the Ocoee Sunday afternoon, and work our way up through the more difficult rivers, ending at Section IV Chattooga. Perhaps renting a bus, camp each night at a new park close to the next day's river. $371 - Rafting (May be lower by leveraging multiple rivers.) $ 90 - Food ($15/day x 6 days) $200 - Van rental and gas per person $661 - Total cost per boy Less than transportation to New Mexico...

You struck a nerve there. Scouting is a GREAT value. Comparisons: 6th/7th/8th grade Allstar basketball leagues = $200-$350 per season. 2 seasons per year. T2 tennis = $60 per season. 4 seasons per year. Neither of those activities yields the lifelong benefits of Scouting.

Dean, Thanks for your input. Our committee hadn't considered that any of our good Scout parents might sue us if we accidentally let the world know that Little Johnny had the measles when he was 5. We were originally going to post the forms on a password protected page on the troop's website. All ERs have internet access, right? But the net might be down in the case of bad storms, whereas any battery powered laptop could access a flashdrive. Individual forms following just those boys in a car would never work. Too many lost forms, or exceptions made when John's form was still in the other car from the trip last month. Our solution has been having the trip leader carry a huge binder with the whole troops forms in it. I gotta admit that the binder took some abuse under the rear seat of my Suburban on our last paddling trip. I think we'll stick with the flashdrive idea, but I will bring it up to the lawyers on the committee. Thank you.

Eagle732: I thought that is what I said: "If your CM is a control freak to the degree that "If I can't get that task done, then nobody's gonna do it!", then your committee needs to find him another job." You're not snared in that BSA nomenclature, are you? CM is not MC... These folks don't have a CM. They have a person call 'Cubmaster' who won't let anyone else help him. Strange....

The only thing y'all haven't covered thoroughly is the CM refusing adult help. When CM, I made it a point to never refuse help! (I did have to beg for help a few times...) If I don't think that a volunteering adult was capable of doing the task that they wanted to do, I'd find some other way for them to help. Even the Hall Monitor job is important and making a contribution. (Our guys broke a toilet off the wall once during PWD. $518. Now we have adult hall monitors.) If your CM is a control freak to the degree that "If I can't get that task done, then nobody's gonna do it!", then your committee needs to find him another job. Need a hall monitor?

Paperwork saving suggestion: Scan your troop's/pack's health forms and save them onto a flash drive. MUCH easier to carry on trips than a six inch tall pile of paper. And easier to pass off via eMail to the leader of the next outing.

I wonder how much the paperwork hurdles have weeded out the woodsmen adults in favor of the patient plodding bureaucrats? Few competent men will bother to fill out the same ridiculous form multiple times every year. You don't want me to give my time to your organization? Okay, see ya! I'm pretty sure that BSA is not intentionally losing forms in their quagmire. That would imply an ability and thought process that I don't think they have...

OMG, what a list! Anybody want to posit that BSA has not become a paper-pushing bureaucracy?

Boots! Really good socks. Folding saw (Depends on where you go...) Raingear.

Individual Districts would develop their own personalities. City and college town troops would go digital/games. Burbs would go sports. Rural would go back to the woods with BP.

Fred, As much as I wish you statement: "BSA has and always will be about the outdoors." was true; I can't agree. My troop, and many of the other posters here, are lamenting the shrinkage of outdoor skills and program content. We need to get the boys back in the woods! And a with a tip of the hat to Kudu: Back in the woods ALONE! (without an adult hovering)

Jackfrost - 1977 - Our snowshoes didn't have 'decking'. The frames were woven across with quarter inch wide strips of leather. (Or some reasonable facsimile thereof...) The army gave us 4 foot long trail snowshoes. Not too wide, with a long tapered tail for stability and speed. Enough webbing to support a 195 pound soldier carrying an 80 pound pack. For jumping, our snowshoes were rigged on our lowering lines (Rucksack to jumper- 20 feet of 1 inch nylon rope). What they didn't plan for was the USAF dropping us at 150 feet above the deck instead of 500 feet. Dang that magnetic interference! When you jump out of an airplane going 125mph, you are going 125mph, so your parachute opens horizontally, and you swing down under it. With only 100 feet to fall, by the time you check chute and drop ruck, you'd better be into you PLF, or you'll break a leg. Half of us never got a chance to release our snowshoes, so we grounded with them still tied to our harness. Lotsa 4 foot trail snowshoes became 2 foot bearpaws suitable for motor pool work...

"Nice attitude Joebob" Basement, I'm glad you approve. "So your going to exit the second your boys quit, age out or Eagle." When I became a DL I was told that my first and most important job was to recruit and train my replacement. Did that. Same for CM. My present position on the committee is 'Scout Parent Coordinator'; being courted for SM. (I could get fired first for pushing scout skills and refusing to sign off in BORs for one-and-done.) If I accept SM in January, I'll give the troop 3 to five years and give ample notice and help recruit/train my replacement. Why on earth is that not enough? I have no need to tilt at windmills. Irving will never no I exist. Heck, my district barely acknowledged it when I walked out of their ITOLs class. I'm not a Democrat; I have no desire to save the world. I'll just do the best I can to make my little bit of the world better for my family. After scouts, I'll invest my free time in following my daughter's basketball career and son's tennis. Maybe I'll even get re-acquainted with my wife, if she'll still have me. Family vacations after scouting can include the whole family and not just the men. I care more about my family than scouting. Your priorities may vary. JoeBob

Big Bovine, don't take this personally, okay? You statement: "Which takes me back to the analogy I am familiar with. If I felt that way about My religion, as soon as my boys are of age, I might as well leave the Church. I am not needed there anymore, my job is done, I don't have a dog in the race, I've been a religious boy (Being a religious man is kinda creepy right?)" makes little sense. I'm in scouts for my boy. I'm in church for myself and my God. Aging out of church means that I've died and gone to heaven, a course that should make Woodbadge look really weinie! I devote time to scouts for my boy. I may learn a little and contribute a lot. But there's no reason to assume that I'm the only one who can fill those roles. Stop taking logic lessons from some of our fellow posters. Be proud to be a Bovidae who plods towards rational conclusions, instead of a Cervidae who bolts from one thought to another! (Okay, I had to look up the Ungulate/Ruminatia family tree...)

I thought "moosetracker" was mother to "Moose the Italian Blacksmith" Did I loose track, er?

Sorry Brewmeister, Here's the flippant comment from moosedropper that I could not let pass: 'The Republicans trying to throw the bible into preserving the earths's resources is the problem, they try to use it to ignore global warming, and those the republicans have chosen to be on the science committee, have all stated ridiculous things that make them walking jokes.' Can I sell you some popcorn?

Duplicate.(This message has been edited by JoeBob)

You'll have to convince me that it makes sense for me to hang around the troop/pack when I no longer have a son involved. If I do a good job, the knowledge that I have will be passed down through scouts and scouters. By lingering, I'd be enabling other dads to NOT step up to the plate. I've been a Boy Scout. I feel no need to be a Man Scout. It's actually sorta creepy...

Moose! Your links to 'global warming' alarmists crack me up! Thanks. http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/15/more-say-there-is-solid-evidence-of-global-warming/ A survey of man-on-the-street types finds that 67% think that the globe is warming after an eight year media barrage? Hurrah for the intelligent 33%! http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20120806/ You must have missed the media hubbub when Hansen was scolded by NASA for cherry picking data. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/28/602151/bombshell-koch-funded-study-finds-global-warming-is-real-on-the-high-end-and-essentially-all-due-to-carbon-pollution/?mobile=nc Thinkprogress as a reliable source? Uh huh. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ An EPA propaganda website aimed at children? http://www.sampler.isr.umich.edu/2012/research/global-warming-and-the-global-economic-growth/ This Univ. of Mich. study doesn't attempt to prove global warming. Just to predict the economic impact IF it happens. http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/new-research-global-warming-0470.html Here's what inquiring minds think of the 'Union of Concerned Scientists;: http://www.globalwarming.org/2012/06/07/union-of-concerned-scientists-not-very-concerned-with-accuracy/ The link I posted simply points out that the predicted warming ain't happening. It's a graph of actual temperatures, not projections. Did you read the Georgia Tech professor of CLIMATOLOGY who observed that "the computer projection models have been deeply flawed"? As to your anecdotal suppositories: Sandy was a 100 year storm. Whose SUVs caused the last one, 100 years ago? Polar bears? Google "Polar Bear Extinction Hoax" for yourself. Get back to me in another 20 years about how we need to combat "Global Cooling!"