I'm reluctant to say the following in this particular thread because of the very real tragedy, but because of comments such as the ones above, I'm going to anyway.
The very first time I ever shot a gun was in one of my high school classes. "How difficult could it be?" I thought. So, I just pointed and shot and was excited to get my very first target, no problem! Well, at least there was no problem in hitting the moving target. Unfortunately, due to it being my first time shooting, I didn't hold the butt of the gun stock firmly enough against my shoulder, and so I got a pretty bad kick back.
I think it was because of that and my then hurting shoulder that I was a bit distracted and so missed my second target, which of course I felt a bit embarrassed about. I regained my composure, however, and I believe I went on to hit my next three shots in a row getting, if I remember correctly, a total of four out of the five. I then handed off the shotgun to a fellow student for him to take his turn.
You know, I don't really remember whether it was the teacher's gun that we used or whether the school provided it. I think, though, it might have been the teacher's. I just don't remember for sure. I do remember, though, that we didn't actually have a gun range or anything like that at my school, so our teacher just took us out somewhere into the countryside where we did our skeet shooting.
I went to a public school that was in the middle of the city, though. People who went to private schools may have had a different sort of educational experience. Sometimes, if not often, they could be religious schools, so I suspect some might have even had a bias against guns and so might not have provided a full and proper education.
It was a "hunting and boating safety" class that I was taking, btw.
