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I was just considering getting my son into the scouts and this encourages me.
I think your local offerings can be a big factor. I grew up in scouts, loved my experience for the most part.
But talking with other people about their experiences can be a mixed bag. Each troop has its own priorities, the national Scouting organization gives troops a lot of flexibility on how they want to run their operation.
My troop, for example, was huge on outdoor activities. We had monthly camping trips, sometimes more than one a month. We did participate in organized “scouting events” as well with other troops, but that was sort of secondary.
Other troops are big on “scouting achievements” like merit badges, “scouting societies” like Order of the Arrow, medals and honors kinda thing, I felt like that would be a bit of a drag. But to each their own.
I definitely learned some pretty good skills in it, so I would personally recommend, though biased.
Learned first aid, fire starting, safe wood chopping, some decent enough regional wilderness survival skills, and had a good amount of fun along the way. Also learned gun safety in a very important meeting we had that probably should have been either a once every year meeting.
Oh dear firearm training, even at the most basic of levels is so under appreciated.
It really is.
As someone that went through this program, I can't stress enough that the takeaways here go far beyond marksmanship; the program makes sure of it. Because of merely attempting to get the Riflery merit badge I have a profound respect and safety awareness for guns, and all I used was a .22 bolt-action rimfire, which is about as basic as it gets. At the same time I'm aware that being halfway good at maintaining and using one are skills that must be cultivated and are not easy to do nor intutive. If I had to use a firearm now, I know that I'd have to use it at close range to be any good.
And unlike most americans (according to statistics) know that you should unload the firearm before cleaning, storage, or hiding in an oven. Its the main difference between the states and nations that require a firearms license. Even one day of training before letting people buy a firearm drastically changes outcomes.
Education is key in firearm safety.
Nobody scares me more at the range than adults who rent a gun who clearly have no experience. They're often simultaneously confident and dangerous. Kids at the range are afraid of getting in trouble so listen to people telling them how to be safe, but adults are the fucking worst.
Here in Canada we have that very issue with police at the range (my range had to ban them in groups). The mix of overconfidence and need to show off while having less safety training then regular people is a deadly recipe.
vet the troop carefully, but yeah, it's a good organization.
And listen to your kid if they say it's not what it looks like. My troop looked totally fine if you asked the Scoutmaster. It turns out it was just his kid and his kid's best friends who were all assholes. I got beaten up at least once, and eventually got kicked out because I pulled my knife on the Scoutmaster's kid, because he had pulled his knife first, and literally backed me up against a cliff with it. Dude was a psycho and eventually joined the Army during the big 2009 push (what a shock).