174 
forest and stream 
April, 1919' 
GIVE THE YOUNGSTERS A CHANCE 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
P LERE ought to be an amendment to 
New York’s gun- toting law which 
would permit parents to train their chil- 
dren in the use of fire-arms. Under the 
present law, as I understand it, one can- 
not get a permit for a boy to carry a 
gun, nor for him to hunt, except on the 
limited areas of one’s own property. 
When, a year ago, I went to a dis- 
penser of hunting licenses, and tried to 
obtain one for my boy, ten years of age, 
he acted as though he was insulted when 
I tried to obtain an explanation of the 
refusal to grant the boy a license. 
“We just don’t do it; that’s all!” he 
said. 
The difficulty seems to be, in New York 
state, the Sullivan law which was aimed 
to get criminals whom the New York 
police could not catch otherwise than 
with fire-arms on their persons. It was 
a confession that the police were in- 
efficient. Accordingly, the right to carry 
fire-arms was seriously abridged, even 
though there is some sort of a provi- 
sion in the old time U. S. Constitution 
that guarantees the individual’s right to 
bear arms. 
The habit of the hunting license is 
nicely extended so that if a man hunts 
without one, they get him, too. The 
States variously differentiate between 
outsiders and insiders, notably Arkansas, 
whose game was all being killed off by 
rather hoggish and unscrupulous hunt- 
ers and game baggers from elsewhere. 
There is opportunity here for reciprocity 
among sporting people, including auto- 
mobilists, and doubtless there will be in 
time. 
But the New York state condition as 
regards boys and girls and the use of 
fire-arms is seriously against any one 
caring to risk the various menaces of 
state police, game protectors and local 
police. No matter with what good in- 
tention a parent starts out to teach his 
boy to hunt, trap and know the woods, 
the boy’s rifle, when he is under 16 years 
of age, may possibly be used to get the 
parent into serious difficulty with the 
Sullivan Law. 
Boys learn to use fire-arms the best 
when from ten to fourteen years of age. 
I was eleven years old when I began with 
a 32 Remin^n rim-fire. I shot hun- 
dreds of heads of game with it, from 
deer to chipmunks. One thing my fa- 
ther taught me, morning, noon and night 
for a few weeks: 
“Never point a gun at any one, at 
yourself, or at any thing you don’t want 
to shoot; never shoot in the direction 
of any house, cattle, or garden; always 
throw your bullet into a solid back- 
ground, if possible.” 
I’ve never had an accident nor seen 
one — I knock wood, of course! 
My proposal is that the Sullivan Law 
be amended in legal phrase, to cover the 
square, law-abiding boy who wants to 
own a rifle or gun, and who will have 
instruction in using it. The boy should 
have a distinctive hunting license of his 
own, and a button of his own. 
This license would be issued on con- 
dition that he have competent instruc- 
tion. It would be signed by an instructor, 
as well as by the boy. The instructor 
should be known to the issuing office of 
the license. The boy would apply for his 
instruction either from a parent, a Boy 
Scout Headquarters, an old guide or 
woodsman, or from a sportsman. A part 
of the course in school and in field would 
be “Game Laws and Useful Animals.” 
It might be well for every district to 
have professional instructors in gun craft 
for boys. The instructors should have 
their own certificates, which could be is- 
sued on reputation, as well as on demon- 
strated fitness to serve in the position. 
But the State would issue a leaflet, 
or instruction book, and that book would 
contain the essentials of a boy’s educa- 
tion in guncraft, handling fire-arms, 
carefulness, fitness for the game, and the 
rest. Consider what Chief Legge, and 
his protectors, the editors of guncraft 
magazines. The Master of the Boy Scouts, 
Colonel Roosevelt, Mr. George B. Grin- 
nell, and a committee of similar high 
authorities could put down into a school 
book for outdoor boys, covering the use 
and service of fire-arms under the hunt- 
ing law. 
There ought to be in every school house 
in the state a class that would instruct 
the boys and girls in the use of fire-arms, 
under this state law — if it didn’t be- 
come a national law, under the compul- 
sory military training, for the special 
training of boys and girls who want to 
hunt. No boy in the state should be 
permitted to have a fire-arm who did not 
take this course of instruction, or its 
equivalent, in charge of a parent or a 
professional instructor. This class, for 
boys of 10 to 16 years of age, would 
prepare them for hunting in the fields 
and woods, and for outdoor target prac- 
tice. 
I am not asking too much. I went 
camping out in the deer and bear coun- 
try alone, at thirteen years of age.- My 
boys cannot do that now and carry fire- 
arms. But under a law that made the 
parent responsible for the adequate in- 
struction of his hunting children, the 
boys could go hunting alone, could go 
trapping alone, provided they were still 
under the strict discipline of handling 
fire-arms with every care and caution, ac- 
cording to rules laid down by competent 
authorities. Protectors and police could 
then put the young hunters through the 
manual, to test their fitness, where they 
found them. 
It is all farcical to talk about teaching 
boys to grow up with a rifle in their 
hands when the state law makes the 
parent a criminal for having a pistol, 
or for permitting his children to own 
fire-arms. The worst possible thing that 
can be done is to make it a crime for a 
square parent to do the best possible 
thing, as regards fire-arms and outdoor 
life for his children. It takes a pretty 
level headed boy to differentiate between 
crime and the illegal practice of learn- 
ing to handle a gun, hunt and trap as 
under present game and gun laws. 
An amendment to the laws, compelling 
adequate instruction of boys and girls 
of hunting age, say 10 years, if they are 
to have or use fire-arms, air-guns, bean- 
shooters, would put an end to all the 
distressing accidents due to ignorance, 
and reduce carelessness to the minimum. 
Air-guns and bean-shooters are per- 
fectly proper playthings for children, if 
the youngsters are only taught proper 
play with them. I began my hunting 
in New York City with a bean-shooter, 
killing dozens of sparrows and learning 
to hit marks with them — and never a 
broken window! Never a hit person to 
my discredit. 
Raymond S. Sears, Little Falls, N. Y. 
OLD STATEN ISLAND DAYS 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
1 WAS pretty close to nervous prostra- 
tion but this morning I received my 
knife and I felt easier, now I am just as 
big a kid as ever and I am pleased with 
my new knife, although I am very near 
the three score mark, I am a crank on 
pocket cutlery. I carry three knives and 
keep on hand about fifteen of various 
makes. I received my Forest and Stream 
for March and expect I will not have to 
bother any more with an irregular news 
man. I am sending you a little stuff for 
the paper if you want to use it. I enjoy 
the little articles from old timers and 
the duck and snipe shooting on Bame- 
gat Bay by the old writer is good. I have 
been there myself; it’s a good place yet. 
I may some time write up my cruise on 
the “Deborah Jane,” on the said bay. 
