From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 'Gun camp' targets safety NRA offers teens 'the ultimate in introductory shooting' By Donna Leinwand USA TODAY RATON, N.M. -- In many ways, it's like any other summer camp: the bugs biting, the sun blazing, the kids' cabins a petri dish of moldy sleeping bags and dirty T-shirts. But then there are the 14-year-olds firing high-powered rifles, the boom-plunk of bullets hitting steel echoing through the camp. And there are the nighttime powwows where kids tell tales of their first deer kills instead of ghost stories. Back home, not everyone understands these teenagers' love of guns or the thrill of firing them. But here, on a 33,000-acre shooting range in New Mexico's ranch country, most everyone gets it. The program is known as the NRA Whittington Adventure, but the kids who come here for two-week sessions call it simply ''gun camp.'' The camp started in 1988, about the time an explosion in specialized summer programs began driving up camp attendance among American youths. About 9 million kids in the USA are attending camps this summer, the American Camping Association says. Attendance has jumped 8%-10% annually for the past several years, as traditional camps, those typically offering crafts, games and campfire songs, compete with more offbeat programs. Today teens can learn digital moviemaking at a camp in Monterey, Calif., watch whales at a research camp in the Canadian province of New Brunswick or study aboriginal culture in Australia. But nothing's quite like gun camp, where $725 gets teens into a two-week program where they learn to shoot four types of guns, track a deer or a bear, rustle up an outdoor meal, tie five types of knots and erect a tent. The campers, ages 13-17, also are taught the firearm and conservation principles of sport hunters. ''This is the ultimate in introductory shooting,'' says Mike Ballew, who directs the range near the Colorado border where the camp is held. ''We send them home a different child. We build a degree of self-reliance in these kids.'' Along the way, the teens get a dose of pro-gun spin that would make Charlton Heston proud. They won't, for example, hear their instructors call a gun or rifle a ''weapon.'' Ask the instructors about gun violence, and they'll echo the National Rifle Association, which founded the ranch: A baseball bat can be a weapon, but no one's snatching Louisville Sluggers from Little Leaguers, are they? But outside this camp, it isn't always easy being a teenager who enjoys guns and shooting sports. The national debate over gun control rarely has been more heated, and a series of devastating school shootings has led some to view gun enthusiasts with suspicion. ''If my teacher asked where I was going for the summer, I'd just say adventure camp, not NRA shooting camp,'' says Tucker Phelps, 17, of Wilmington, N.C., who is at his second gun camp. ''I don't want my teachers to be scared of me.'' Tucker, who plays soccer and runs cross-country, loves target shooting but doesn't hunt. He shoots skeet with a 12-gauge shotgun and plinks cans with a rifle. His cousin, Katie Allnutt, 15, of Highland, Md., in her third year here, is a counselor. Tucker, one of 48 campers at the first of two sessions this summer, says he doesn't know many other kids who shoot. ''You don't want to go around asking people if they shoot,'' he says. ''They may get the wrong impression.'' Like Tucker, other campers and their counselors are quite aware of how a gun camp for teens might seem to outsiders. Each night, instructors lecture the teens about being sensitive to the perceptions of people who might be offended by guns and hunting. Don't strap bloody kill to the front of your pickup truck, the campers are told. Don't walk into a restaurant with a gun or knife strapped to your waist and blood on your clothing. Not everyone sees things the way you do. In a sense, the warnings reflect one of the virtues of gun camp for some teens: For two weeks, they don't have to explain themselves to people who can't fathom why a teenager needs a gun. Yet the campers have thought a lot about gun control and violence. Back home, several have to pass through metal detectors at school. One camper lives in Littleton, Colo., where residents still struggle to cope with the massacre at Columbine High School last year by two students with automatic weapons. Another camper's father was killed by a gunman six months ago. But like the NRA, both campers say people, not guns, are the problem. Guns don't kill people ''The firearms didn't kill anybody,'' says Nathan Lewis, 15, who lives about three miles from Columbine. ''If parents don't teach their kids the difference between right and wrong, they'll cause harm with any object.'' The NRA estimates that 40 million people participate in shooting sports each year. The gun-rights group says shooting's popularity among youths has grown -- particularly among girls -- since 17-year-old Kim Rhode won an Olympic gold medal in double trap shooting in 1996. When gun camp began, virtually all its campers were white males, the predominant demographic for sport shooting and hunting in the USA. Today, most of the campers and staff are white, but now girls typically make up about a quarter of the campers and often, a counselor says, are among the best shooters. The camp was booked solid for this summer by last Christmas, Ballew says. Next year's two sessions already are more than half full. By 7 a.m. on the first day of camp, the campers are pledging allegiance to the American flag in the corner of the cafeteria. They recite a religiously neutral prayer and then line up for a hearty breakfast buffet. The girls go first. It's the rule: ''Ladies first'' to board the bus or visit the buffet. The rule doesn't apply on the firing range. An hour later, the kids, divided by age, are parceled out among four firing ranges to learn gun fundamentals. Before a shot is fired, they are drilled on four basic rules: * Treat every gun as if it were loaded. * Control the muzzle of the gun. * Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. * Know your target and what is beyond it. At a class on muzzleloaders, replicas of Civil War-era weapons, the teens learn another ditty for loading ammunition: ''Powder, patch, ball or it won't fire at all.'' Instructor Richard Smith, a retired construction engineer with a white beard that gives him a ''mountain man'' look, shows how to measure out the black powder and stuff the .50-caliber lead ball into the muzzle. When the firing line ''goes hot,'' the kids and instructors snap on protective glasses and put in earplugs. Instructor James Goodall, 19, a political science major at Oklahoma State University who aspires to be a lobbyist for the NRA, watches carefully to prevent any jostled guns or misdirected muzzles. ''Safety is the most important thing we teach,'' he says. ''If they learn nothing else, they will learn to respect the power of a gun.'' Growing diversity Goodall, the only one of the camp's 11 instructors who is black, grew up hunting in Oklahoma and in the West with his parents. His stepfather, who is white, sent him to Whittington as a camper five years ago. At first, he balked. ''I pretty much figured there wouldn't be any African-American kids out in the mountains,'' he says. He was right; he was Whittington's first black camper. But he has returned every year since, moving up to counselor and then instructor and seeing the enrollment become more diverse, at least by gender. Under Goodall's watch, Alison Bond, 17, of Fellsmere, Fla., steps to the line, tucks her blond hair behind an ear pierced with a diamond stud and hoists a muzzleloader to her shoulder. The bullets ping off metal targets 75 yards away. Her stepfather introduced her to duck hunting when she was 6. Alison's first kill was a mottled mallard hen. ''It feels good when you hit a target. Shooting a deer, it's like a trophy,'' says Alison, who has hunted muskrat, alligator, quail, buffalo and deer. Her father wants to take her armadillo hunting soon. ''I'm not sure about that,'' she says. ''I think of that as roadkill.'' Alison's mother, Judy Kay, like other parents, says safety is a big reason her family sent Alison here. Safety is key While Whittington demands and usually receives an uncommon level of maturity from its campers, kids will be kids. Just as in any summer camp, horseplay, teasing and practical jokes are inevitable. That's what worries gun-control advocates such as Naomi Paiss. Paiss, of Handgun Control Inc., has no beef with shooting sports as ''an age-old pastime that requires skill and maturity and practice.'' But for teens, she says, maturity is a slippery thing. Each year, more than 8,000 people ages 15-24 are killed in the USA with firearms, Centers for Disease Control records show. That group had the highest number of unintentional shootings among all ages in 1997, the last year for which statistics are available. Even if their kids are consistently responsible, Paiss says, parents who allow their children to handle guns -- and attend gun camp -- are taking a chance. ''There is the question of the kid that you don't know is troubled,'' she says. ''Even good kids make mistakes. They get depressed. They get angry. And their decision-making powers are not that of an adult.'' True, says Lewis Allnutt, Katie's father, who says he keeps his 60 guns away from his four children by locking them in a safe. Katie is responsible, but she might have friends who aren't, he says. ''They need total supervision,'' he says. ''I'm a freak when it comes to safety because there is potential for tragedy.'' At Whittington, campers do not touch the guns unless they are at the firing line with an instructor at their side. Casual handling of guns, pranks and even smart remarks draw lectures and discipline. One night on the rifle range, a 14-year-old boy kids his pal about a game of Russian roulette. Wendy Watts, 15, a counselor-in-training from Empire, Colo., chastises him. ''Quiet,'' she says. ''Stop talking like that. It's a stupid game. And it's not something to talk about, especially at a firing range.'' An ordinary practical joke at any other camp, toothpaste smeared on the cabins' doorknobs, becomes a morality tale here. The smell lured a bear to the campsite. Whittington assistant program director Tom Carline shooed it back into the pine scrub by pelting it with a slingshot. No harm done. The campers, however, do not escape unscathed. To camp director Jim Olson, the pranksters were being reckless, especially since campers had been told the previous night that smelly things attract bears. Olson issues an ultimatum: If no one confesses by dinnertime, the whole camp will have to wake up at 4 a.m., hike to the gun ranges and set up targets. For the rest of the day, instructors slip messages into every lesson. ''If you're not responsible about something as little as toothpaste, how in the world are you going to be a responsible hunter?'' asks hunter educator Cindy Rockenfield, as she begins her class on New Mexico's wildlife rules. ''If you're covering for somebody, are you going to cover for a game violator?'' But no one confesses. So the campers get up early the next morning and hike. Lesson learned? Well, sort of: ''If you're going to play a practical joke, do it on the last night'' of camp, says Chris Gilger, 15, of McHenry, Ill. As the campers trudge toward the targets, Olson wonders if he's being too harsh. But he remembers that it's his job to help the kids build character. ''If that bear keeps hanging around, one of those kids could get hurt,'' he says. ''They need to understand the consequences of their actions and take responsibility. That's what we're trying to teach here.'' Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
