Incredible sounding question... Did any of you have Riflery as a Phys Ed class in your high school?

Not since 1945.

They offered it in high school…that would have been the early 1970s.

We had a rifle club in high school. This was around 1979. We met off school property at a rifle range. Unfortunately the teacher (the club’s leader) only had one meeting of the club because his son and his father or mother died within a very short time, so he was out for a long time and the club never met again that year.

It would be interesting if responders would mention the location or general geographical area they were in.

Such an activity would have been unthinkable at my high school. There was nowhere in the urban/suburban near vicinity that would have been large enough and protected enough to be safe for passersby.

There might have been riflery classes at my first college, though, which was in the wilds of wide, flat Iowa. I took archery in PE there.

I live in NY tri-state area (area where NY/NJ/CT come together).

I was in Vermont.

Small, elite, private girls’ day school in a suburb of NYC in the 60s. So, nope. No riflery. Archery, yes.

California in late 1950s rifle club Jr. High.

I went to school in a small town in the east of Scotland and what you describe would have been utterly unthinkable madness.

I lived on Long Island when it was considered quite rural. A big potato field.
We brought our guns to school on the school bus and kept them in our lockers.

Mossberg made the target rifles for schools and they did not have serial numbers before ~1966.

Not in school, but each year since I was 9 years old through junior high, I went to Carbide Camp and we had to learn how to shoot. It was an hour long class each day.

My father did teach me to fire a rifle when I was about 12. We shot tin cans off a log in the woods of Nova Scotia.

No, but we did do a little bit of archery, and wrestling.
I took sword fighting as an adult.

Small town in north Georgia, mid-late 60s. No riflery offered; however, we did have archery. If memory serves…the mothers put their foot down when it came to teaching their sons how to kill animals. I don’t remember many of the boys going deer hunting either. They did go fishing & frog gigging, but guns weren’t required for that. Girls weren’t allowed to do anything but cook, clean, sew, read books, & babysit.

My mom had some sort of target shooting in The Bronx. She was a teen in the 1960’s.

I had archery in school, but I think it was before high school. No guns in school for me.

My university had Olympics marksman training. You had to lock up and register your rifle between practice.

I had a class called “Lifetime Sports” that had us do shooting. I had no idea before the class that there was a rifle range in the basement of our high school. I suppose the ROTC used it more than any class.

No. American school 1970s-1980s.

And this was a suburban/rural district where ⅓ of the boys would be absent from class during deer-hunting season.

What is even more incredible to me is that at one time the boys had to swim naked in swim class.

Sure did.

@Dutchess_III wh..where?! wh…when?! why?! I’m truly shocked.

In junior high those with out gym clothes had to participate in their underwear. Or to rent a pair from the teacher for $0.25.

^^ That’s just sad, and also financial discrimination, or some kind of discrimination!

Just wait. Some Jellies had to swim naked.

We didn’t have Riflery as a PE class. But we did have Surf PE as a zero period option. (Grew up in a coastal town in Southern California.) Makes sense that there are PE classes that reflect the regional extracurriculars.

@raum where was that ? I went to Jr. Hi with kids from Venice and and Manhattan Beach.

You have to be able to access your venue, get back and get back to school, all in about 40 minutes.

For the voluntary swim test at sleep-away camp we had to swim naked. We all lined up on one side of a marked area, dove in and got out the other side where we were given towels.
If you swam the distance under a certain time you could use the canoes and kayaks without direct adult supervision.

Damn pedophiles.

@LuckyGuy Why naked?!

I think it was just easier logistically for the camp to do it. Our cabins were far from the lake.
Nobody was forced to do it. I guess we could have done it in our underwear but then we’d have been in wet clothes all day.

They dry very quickly in summer. By the time you get back to camp they’d be dry. And they knew it.

We had a shooting team, rifles and archery. Late 1980’s.

@Blackwater_Park Our school had a rifle team as well. they had nice target rifles but they were too heavy for me. I needed something light.
Where did you go to school? Did your school provide the rifles or did the students?

In a small town in western north Carolina. I think they had some rifles but kids could bring theirs and leave them at the office in the morning. I was not on the team so I’m not sure what they had.

@Blackwater_Park We brought our guns to school on the school bus and kept them in our lockers! We were not allowed to have ammo with us and the bolts had to be open or removed.
Anyone caught violating that rule could never participate in that activity ever again.
Everyone followed the rules.
(I removed my bolt and kept it wrapped in wax paper with the gun.)

@LuckyGuy Different times, it was only 35 years ago in my case and this was middle school. We moved my freshman year in high school to a bigger city and they did not have one at my new school. The place we lived before was the type of community that basically shut down during the start of deer hunting season. The memory of kids bringing their rifles on the bus in the morning and it be perfectly normal is alien to many here. In my mind it just shows that something else has changed to cause people to go nuts and commit mass shootings. People don’t want to hear it though.