Heck, when I was a kid, almost everything I shot at was something I shouldn't!
No, I wasn't quite that bad, since both of my parents were firm believers in corporal punishment, with the sentence for the worst of the worst infractions being 1) a green switch for my mother or 2) The Belt from my dad. Not being complete and total idiots, we three youngin's learned quite quickly to be pretty good kids. Well, most of the time. ;-)
Anyhow, and this seems just amazing to even consider in today's world, quite a few of us would take our BB guns to school with us in the morning, for playing war before the school day started. It was 1st grade for me, so this was back around 1961 or so, catching the school bus in the wee mornin' hours from our farm WAY out in the countryside to the elementary school in scenic downtown Round Hill, VA (basically, just a few homes, a combination general store/pharmacy/post office, a volunteer fire department, a gas station and the school). Anyway, most of the kids back then had BB guns that you unscrewed at the muzzle, pulled out the attached six or eight inch storage tube, loaded by pouring in as many BBs as it would hold, screwed it back in place, cocked it and ready to shoot. These were not variable pumpers, since a single 'pump' loaded a BB (most of the time) and 'cocked' it, and luckily, they were not very powerful -- hardly enough oomph even for the smallest bird or other critter unlucky and close enough to be targeted. Since we were going to school, we just didn't take the muzzle loading assembly along with us, making shooting a BB impossible. Instead, we'd push the open muzzle down into damp dirt (!!!!!) to get a circular clod of earth and grass roots that we'd very actively and with malice aforethought do our very very best to hunt down and shoot each other with! Even at almost point blank range, it wasn't painful, thank goodness, and if fairly dry, it almost looked like smoke from an explosion (which everyone thought very cool), and most of the kids were good enough to try and make sure not to shoot anybody in the head, so we considered the system cool and safe. Looking back on it now though... even as weak as those old guns were, that was INCREDIBLY dangerous and stupid (anyone else out there feel lucky to have survived their youth?)! I can't believe we got away with it at all, but incredibly, our little before-school-day-starting-bell war went on for weeks, until some random, tender young lady ended up as collateral damage from a dirty dress or skirt or something. She was not pleased, ensuring word of the dirt-clodding reached the school principal, so that was the end of BB guns at school. Still, we were able to get away with it for WEEKS before being shut down! Heck, a number of teachers actually had checked into what we were up to and given us tacit approval, since without the muzzle assembly, a ball of air (or a dirt clod, which we didn't demonstrate for some reason) was the worst thing we could shoot at each other, so they let us continue! Can you imagine? I can't even BEGIN to think about anything like that being possible today! Wow.
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