The Gun Counter

Second photo was taken at night. The glow you see is my pride

Splendid. I have a very happy memory of my father teaching me how to make a catapult. We whittled the Y from an old floorboard, used bicycle inner tube for the stretch, and the tongue of an old shoe for the bit to hold the pebble.

My parents weren't hoplophobes, but they had an incomplete idea of the proclivities of young boys.
Consequently, they denied my brother and I the possession of a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, because we might shoot our eyes out, but Ma, having grown up in Depression Ozarkistan, allowed that every boy she grew up in proximity to had a back-pocket slingshot, so she couldn't see any harm in getting us each Wham-O Wrist Rockets with about 10 times the destructive potential, including the helpful conversion of everything from raw fruit to dirt clods and firecrackers as ad hoc ammunition.

Trust me when I tell you that every home within our lethal umbrella realized we lads had apprehended the concept of "firebase" long before being taught the concepts by Uncle Sam, to the terror of man and beast for upwards of two blocks in any direction.

It was, in the flesh, proof of the Socratic adage "Beat your son every week. Even if you don't know why you're doing it, rest assured that he does."

Congrats on your justifiable pride at welcoming the son and heir into the ranks of Future Persons Of Interest.

Aesop wrote:Trust me when I tell you that every home within our lethal umbrella realized we lads had apprehended the concept of "firebase" long before being taught the concepts by Uncle Sam, to the terror of man and beast for upwards of two blocks in any direction.

My brother once broke the front window of our house, from a block away, with a water balloon, using a water balloon slingshot..

He was trying to lob it OVER the house into the woods beyond.. Fell about 300 feet short..

Aesop wrote:My parents weren't hoplophobes, but they had an incomplete idea of the proclivities of young boys.
Consequently, they denied my brother and I the possession of a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, because we might shoot our eyes out, but Ma, having grown up in Depression Ozarkistan, allowed that every boy she grew up in proximity to had a back-pocket slingshot, so she couldn't see any harm in getting us each Wham-O Wrist Rockets with about 10 times the destructive potential, including the helpful conversion of everything from raw fruit to dirt clods and firecrackers as ad hoc ammunition.

I had a similar experience growing up, except my dad DID have a BB gun when he was a kid, therefore we were forbidden from having them. However, he did allow me to purchase a wrist rocket with my own money that I'd earned washing the company trucks. Got accused once of having broken a window with it. My dad was amused since I had been out of state visiting relatives at the time. Heard about it when I got back.

The modern wonder that is Google Earth, with the ruler function, allows me to determine that anything within 150 yards of FB Hooligan was within our range fan, based on the targets we hit in the day, usually with rock hard lumps of sundried adobe about the size of a monkeyfist knot.

It's amazing how loud those are on a mortar trajectory onto a galvanized roof, or what a random cascade of them does to after-school AFJROTC drills.

We also had the only yard for blocks that crows would fly around to avoid, out of habit.

HTRN wrote:

Aesop wrote:Trust me when I tell you that every home within our lethal umbrella realized we lads had apprehended the concept of "firebase" long before being taught the concepts by Uncle Sam, to the terror of man and beast for upwards of two blocks in any direction.

My brother once broke the front window of our house, from a block away, with a water balloon, using a water balloon slingshot..

He was trying to lob it OVER the house into the woods beyond.. Fell about 300 feet short..

When I was in 8th Grade I was in the Civilian Air Patrol. We we're finishing up a SAREX one weekend and someone had brought one of the water balloon slingshots with them. A few of us promptly filled up some balloons and started doing some indirect fire exercises. We we're getting pretty good too. There was a covered firepit near where we were that had a corrugated tin roof and someone had parked the squadron van next to it. There was about a 2-3' gap between the roof of the van and the tin roof. This is important for later. A bunch of the adult members and senior cadet staff were having a short meeting under this covered area, no fire going obviously but there was a great deal of soot and ash in there. We had the bright idea that a water balloon banging off the tin roof would give everybody in there a proper scare. We line up, load, tension, estimate range, and release.

I watched in abject horror as that water balloon sailed right through the gap and heard the cries of surprise/anger as it had apparently been a direct hit on the firepit. It looked like Luke Skywalker putting that Proton Torpedo down the frakking exhaust vent on the Deathstar. Wet, ashy, sooty "shrapnel" peppered everybody in attendance. We had instantly eliminated the bunker and taken out every useful level of command with a single shot. Nothing above a Cadet Senior Airman survived. The fallout was as you can expect. Lots of yelling and lecturing about thinking these things through and more than a bit of PT at the next weekly meeting.

Damn, that was a great shot. I wish we could take credit for it...

HTRN wrote:

Aesop wrote:Trust me when I tell you that every home within our lethal umbrella realized we lads had apprehended the concept of "firebase" long before being taught the concepts by Uncle Sam, to the terror of man and beast for upwards of two blocks in any direction.

My brother once broke the front window of our house, from a block away, with a water balloon, using a water balloon slingshot..

He was trying to lob it OVER the house into the woods beyond.. Fell about 300 feet short..

I wasn't allowed bb guns or slingshots growing up, because my father had done too many stupid things with his when he was young. But boys will be boys. I'm not sure but I think it might be safer to get it out of your system young.

There was one time in high school, a few of us were doing some stupid college-application-padding 'volunteer work' and we were left alone, very bored, in an office building in midtown Manhattan in an office with windows that opened. With just rubber bands and paper clips, we could and did bombard the building across the street with very deadly projectiles. High speed paper clips make an odd sound when they bounce off a glass-sided office building.

In college we had surgical tubing. Surgical tubing is a very dangerous thing. That stuff should be considered munitions.

In indirect fire mode, we could send water balloons almost halfway across campus. There were folks on the other side of campus, in a high-rise dorm, whose water balloon launcher exploits were legendary. We had the spirit but not the height advantage.

In direct fire mode, an egg at about 150 feet WILL penetrate a storm window, and then the regular window behind it, and do unpleasant things to the room.

When I got bored with slingshots, I moved on to making my own sling, David and Goliath style--take an old shoe, cut the tongue out and punch two holes at the ends, and tie the laces in the holes. I was amazed how far I could hurl a golf ball or egg sized rock. Getting the projectile to go in the direction I wanted took a while, though.