In my Sunday local paper there was a story about a tweet by State Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac) that he had put out last Thursday night and had later deleted. It started with “Flashback 30 years: when guns were in schools...and nothing happened” and then linked to an opinion piece on a website called PJ Media. That article posits that “The millennial generation might be surprised to learn that theirs is the first without guns in school. Just 30 years ago, high school kids rode the bus with rifles and shot their guns at high school rifle ranges.” According to the author, that was before the moral decay of our society and back in the good ol’ days, “before the Snowflakes, when any adult on the block could reprimand a neighborhood kid who was out of line.” Thiesfeldt, who is also a principal at a Lutheran school has since apologized and walked it back, saying “I don’t believe and never have believed that children should be able to bring guns to school.”
I grew up in the biggest city in my state, Milwaukee, and graduated high school in 1971. I can guarantee you, there was no shooting range at our school, no busloads of kids carrying rifles. Two of my uncles were hunters, but I never saw them with their rifles or shotguns. My dad didn’t hunt, there were no guns in our house. I remember my mom being terrified when she found out that our next door neighbor owned a hand gun. My grandfather was alarmed by the political influence of the NRA way back in the 1980’s. But, there was still no concealed carry, no NRA fueled home invasion paranoia, no stand your ground or castle doctrine. It was coming, though. Looking back, it’s hard not to call that time the good old days. At least as far as guns went.
But I was a city kid and obviously there are big differences in my experiences compared to someone who grew up rural or in a small town. My job took me to a smaller town in the late 1970’s. I worked with guys who had grown up on farms. Most of them hunted, unlike the friends I still had from my old neighborhood. I had always liked archery and target shot at an archery shop in town. Eventually I made the leap to bowhunter. Then small game and duck hunting with a shotgun. I haven’t hunted for many years (found out that I would rather fish instead. Nothing compares to being on the water in fall) but I respect the rights of those who choose to hunt. You don’t need an AR15 with a 30 round clip to hunt. The guys I hunted with would have been appalled if one was brought into their camp.
So, why did he tweet it in the first place? My guess is that it was just another attempt to cloud the issue, another moral decay, absence of prayer in school, “it’s a mental health issue” (despite the fact that they always cut back on funding for mental health) smokescreen to hide behind until enough time passes that the momentum for any gun safety reform peters out. I don’t see the kids from Parkland allowing that to happen. I’m doing the little bit that I can do, writing to my repub legislators (the NRA bought and paid for Ron Johnson and Glenn Grothman) and will volunteer my time for the Democrats running in 2018. This is a huge opportunity for us in Wisconsin, a chance to be rid of Scott Walker, Grothman in my district, Paul Ryan, and to reelect Tammy Baldwin. And to hammer home the point that any politician who takes money from the NRA needs to be voted out.
My grandfather was an outspoken, politically active, tough as nails guy. He was forged that way by the events in his life. Born on a small farm in Germany and drafted into their army in 1918, at the tail end of WW1. The nationalism of his country precipitated that war and its horrific slaughter and at the end, ruined their economy leaving millions destitute. He emerged from the war vehemently anti-war and an atheist. No, God was not on their side, as his schoolmaster and pastor had assured him and his classmates. He and my grandmother immigrated to America in the early 1920’s as soon as they could afford passage. He found a job at a tannery and worked his way up to operating a machine there.
I don’t remember how old I was when I first noticed something odd about the fingers on his left hand. Most of his little finger was gone, as well as the tips of his ring and index fingers. No workplace safety regulations back then, no OSHA, thus no guards or safeties on his machine. I’m pretty sure that was one of the reasons that he became active in starting a union there. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company’s management looked upon them as whiners, the Snowflakes of their time. My grandmother told me that they received so many anonymous threats that they stopped answering their phone. They had their union by the mid 1930’s. That’s the kind of grit and resolve he and his fellow workers had. I’m seeing the same thing from the Parkland students. It gives me hope.