Your Obligation to Bare Arms - Part II: School Gun Clubs

When Schools Taught Marksmanship... and Youth Violence Stayed Low

For much of the early and mid-20th century, American schools treated safe firearm handling as a normal civic skill. Rifle clubs, scholastic leagues, and classroom marksmanship were common, often supported by national programs created to promote safety and proficiency. During those same decades, national homicide rates were low by later standards, especially in the 1950s. The historical record doesn’t show that having structured shooting programs in and around schools caused more violence; if anything, the prevailing data point the other way.

A short history of school marksmanship

• A national push begins (1903). Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt established the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice, the ancestor of today’s Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP), to improve civilian marksmanship through training, competitions, and distribution of rifles and ammunition to affiliated clubs. Schools and youth programs were core beneficiaries.

• New York City brings rifle to school sports (1907–08). The Public Schools Athletic League added rifle marksmanship to its slate alongside track, swimming, and baseball. For decades, PSAL schools fielded teams and held citywide competitions.

• Chicago’s heyday (1930–1960). Illinois’ high-school rifle scene peaked mid-century: roughly 35 Chicago public schools plus additional Catholic and downstate programs competed, typically with .22-caliber rifles at 50 feet.

• Wartime classroom training (1940s). The federally encouraged Victory Corps integrated basic marksmanship into secondary-school activities. An archival photo from Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles shows students learning rifle operation in a school hallway under supervision.

• Continuity into the present. While many basement ranges closed after World War II, scholastic rifle never vanished. The CMP, state interscholastic leagues, and private schools still run sanctioned programs; for example, Western Pennsylvania’s interscholastic league has crowned rifle champions since 1942.

What the numbers looked like

Historical homicide statistics aren’t perfect, but two independent government series tell a consistent story: national homicide rates in the mid-1900s were low relative to late-20th-century peaks.

• The National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. homicide rate fell to about 4.5 per 100,000 in the mid-1950s, “the lowest level since 1910,” before edging up to 5.1 in 1964.

• FBI Uniform Crime Reports summarized by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show 4.6 per 100,000 in 1950 and rates hovering in the 4–5 range through most of the decade.

• Looking further back, CDC vital-statistics compilations trace homicide trends from 1900–1974, again showing comparatively low mid-century rates before the run-up beginning in the late 1960s.

These national series cover all homicides, not just youth or school incidents, but they are the best long-run indicators we have. They capture the period when scholastic rifle programs and supervised youth marksmanship were widespread.

Did guns in schools increase violence?

The historical record doesn’t show an association between supervised scholastic marksmanship and higher gun violence. During the decades when rifle teams and classroom training were common in major districts like New York City and Chicago, national homicide rates sat near century lows and school-targeted attacks were extraordinarily rare in the modern sense. That doesn’t prove causation in either direction, but it directly contradicts the idea that the presence of structured, safety-focused gun programs in schools inherently raised violence.

Why that model worked

1. Structure and supervision. Programs were run by coaches or ROTC instructors, on certified ranges, with defined safety protocols. CMP and NRA curricula emphasized muzzle discipline, storage, and range etiquette long before those terms became culture-war fodder.

2. Civic framing. Marksmanship was taught as a civic skill tied to service, responsibility, and sportsmanship, not as a cultural wedge.

3. Competition, not novelty. Students trained for precision and consistency with low-recoil small-bore rifles at 50 feet, under rules that penalized unsafe behavior.

What this suggests for today

Reviving or expanding school-adjacent marksmanship isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about returning to a proven public-safety formula: teach young people safe handling early, normalize range etiquette, and reward precision and self-control. The period when schools broadly did this coincided with low national homicide rates, and there is no evidence that the programs themselves fueled violence. As with any civic skill, what you train is what you get.

Links to the safety locks, range gear, and training accessories on Ascension Armory.

• Gun Locks & Safes
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• First Aid Kits
• Cleaning Kits

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Sources

• Civilian Marksmanship Program, history and mission; program timeline and youth emphasis. Civilian Marksmanship Program+2Civilian Marksmanship Program+2

• Public Schools Athletic League (NYC), early history and addition of rifle marksmanship to school sports (1907–08). Wikipedia

• Illinois High School rifle marksmanship, participation and format (c. 1930–1960). IHSA

• Victory Corps classroom marksmanship (archival example, Roosevelt High School, Los Angeles). The Atlantic

• Homicide rates: CDC/NCHS analysis of 1950–1964 and long-run CDC series (1900–1974); BJS/FBI UCR long-term table with 1950s rates. CDC+2CDC Stacks+2

• Ongoing scholastic rifle: Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League and current champions list. WPIAL