D O you remember—years ago, when 
you were but a little fellow—how 
you teased the folks for that air 
rifle? Most certainly you do. Do you re¬ 
member how you rushed down stairs al¬ 
most before your eyes were open that 
Christmas morning and, lo and behold! 
something nickled and shiny was leaning 
against the chimney beneath your well- 
filled stocking. Remember it? why, it 
seems like yesterday. 
With that new air rifle in your posses¬ 
sion, life seemed complete. Your heart’s 
desire was gratified. What more could 
a fellow wish for? Nothing, un¬ 
less it might be an unlimited supply 
of BB shot. A few j^ears passed 
away and two or three air rifles went 
the way all well used air rifles go. 
Then came a change. You wanted a 
real rifle—one that would shoot 
powder and bullets. You collected a 
big pile of catalogues and read and 
reread them dozens of times, until 
you could recite paragraphs of their 
contents verbatim et literatim —and 
did so, frequently. 
Then came the day that brought 
the little .22 calibre rifle. How you 
did enjoy it! You used it for years 
and since it first came into your pos¬ 
session you have purchased many 
other rifles of various calibres, but 
you never outgrew the little .22. 
Have you ever stopped to think 
how much more fortunate you were 
than hundreds of other boys? Some 
time in the life of every boy there 
comes the desire to possess a rifle. 
Where one parent permits the boy 
to have a rifle and teaches him or 
!has him taught how to use it and 
■care for it correctly, hundreds of 
^parents flatly refuse to let him have 
•one, or if they do let him have a 
rifle, they let them use it with no 
regard for safety. 
How often do we hear fond parents 
—usually nearsighted ones—who say 
they wouldn’t permit their boy to 
have this or that, or do this or that, 
include firearms among the forbid¬ 
den fruits. But what real red 
blooded father wouldn’t prefer to 
see a cleaning rod that smells of gun oil 
standing in the corner, rather than the 
latest thing in canes. He would not take 
long to choose between a cartridge box 
and a cigarette package, either. 
So by all means give the boy an air rifle 
when he is old enough to use it. Show 
him how to handle it with safety to him¬ 
self and others. You will have nearly as 
much sport out of his first gun as the boy 
himself will—some parents have more. 
Then later, when he outgrows this first 
weapon, let him have a real rifle. But re¬ 
member that you are putting into his 
hands a dangerous firearm—one with suf- 
itrcially 
4 
must be compelled to observe certain rules . 
about handling the rifle. He must be 
taught to carefully and thoroughly clean 
the arm every time it is used; for a dirty 
rifle is the sign of a careless owner, and 
a careless person should not be allowed 
even to possess a firearm. 
A single-shot rifle is better adapted for 
a beginner than a repeating rifle. The 
user will be compelled to insert each car¬ 
tridge with his fingers, and there will be 
less liability of forgetting that the rifle is 
loaded. With but a single bullet at his 
disposal, the shooter will quickly learn to 
be careful, and in this way will ac¬ 
quire accuracy that he would never 
attain if he was handling a repeating 
arm and could blaze away recklessly. 
Ammunition of .22 calibre is cheap, 
but it is better to score cleanly with 
one accurately placed bullet, than to 
waste half a dozen in accomplishing 
the same result. And boys who are 
required to earn their ammunition 
are more liable to be conservative in 
its use than boys to whom it is free¬ 
ly given. The conservative boy likes 
to make each shot count when he 
fires it. 
A .22 calibre bullet is a very small 
bit of lead, but it has sufficient force 
when fired from a rifle barrel to kill 
a person at quite a long range. To ' 
vividly impress on a boy’s mind the 
danger and destruction lurking in 
the little .22, let him experiment with 
his rifle by packing up boards and 
shooting at them at close' range. 
When he learns that the .22 short 
and .22 long will penetrate about 
three and one-half inches of pine, 
and that the .22 long-rifle will tear 
its way through five and a half 
inches of the same wood placed 
twenty feet from the muzzle of the 
rifle, he will quickly realize that he 
has been entrusted with a dangerous 
weapon. If he fails to comprehend 
this lesson, he should not be allowed 
to use a rifle. 
After years of handling and shoot¬ 
ing rifles, and of observing others at 
it, the writer has decided that one 
of the greatest dangers in using 
rifles is generally overlooked. The ma¬ 
jority of shooters bear in mind and 
caution others time and again to know 
what they are shooting at. This is 
excellent advice and should always be 
carried out, but the trouble with most 
beginners is that while they may be care¬ 
ful in not shooting until they are sure just 
what they are about to fire at, they do not 
take into consideration where the bullet 
is going to finally strike after it hits or 
misses the mark shot at. ( 
For example, suppose we set a can on 
top of a fence post and fire at it. The 
bullet hits the mark and passes through it. 
By GEORGE S. BROWN. 
ficient power to take human life—and 
teach him how to use it and take care 
of it. 
An ignorant or careless boy armed with 
a .22 calibre rifle and a box of loaded 
cartridges is a dangerous combination to 
turn loose. He is a harbinger of trouble 
and it will be miraculous if he or one of 
his companions does not come to grief. 
If you permit your boy to have a rifle and 
do not teach—if necessary compel —him to 
use it correctly, you are morally guilty 
of criminal negligence. 
But simply because a .22 calibre rifle is 
Teach him as soon as he is willing to learn 
dangerous, is no just cause for denying 
a boy the privilege of owning one and 
learning to use it correctly. The posses¬ 
sion and use of such a weapon will give 
him many hours of pleasure that he could 
not obtain in any other way. Furthermore, 
if he has shooting to occupy his spare 
hours, he is in little danger from the 
temptations that pool rooms and other city 
diversions offer—which in the end prove 
more deadly than any rifle bullet. 
There are some things that a boy with 
a rifle must be especially cautioned about. 
He must be impressed with the fact that 
on him rests much responsibility. He 
