When I was growing up in the early 1960's, I took three years of Army JROTC in high school. In those days, it was pretty much a male dominated group except for the 12 ladies that were elected as "sponsors" during their seinor years. This was a great honor to be chosen as a sponsor. In our city we had four HS JROTC battalions (3 Army, 1 Navy) for the four schools and each company and each battalion headquarters elected a sponsor.
Each of the HS had a 50-foot indoor range in the basement and conducted marksmanship training with .22 LR match rifles. The sponsors were given the same training as the rest of the cadets and some of them proved to be "natural" marksmen. Two of our four sponsors at my school were so good (and they'd never shot previously) that they replaced two members of our rifle team! (Talk about a blow to a teenage boy's ego.)
There was no one running around, wringing their hands about "teaching kids to kill people" or "teaching kids to be Columbine killers." Marksmanship training for kids was no big thing and it was just part of growing up. This all went away as the result of the late 1960s and 1970s radicalized anti-war movement.
What's not generally known by folks in my town to this day, when I tell them about the JROTC battalions in the high schools, is the numbers of arms that each contained in is vault (and all four schools had arms vaults and ranges). East Senior High School's vault contained: (20) pistol, cal. .45, M1911A1; (20) carbine, cal. .30, M1; (200) rifle, cal. 30, M1; (20) Browning Auromatic Rifle, cal. .30, M1918A2); (10) rifle, cal. .22, Model 52B (Match); (1) mortar, 81mm, M29; (1) recoilless rifle, 106mm, M40A1; (1) light machine gun, cal. .30, M1919A6; (1) rocket launcher, 3.5-inch, M20A1B1; (1) general purpose machine gun, 7.62mm NATO, M60; (1) rifle, 7.62mm NATO, M14, and (1) launcher, grenade, 40mm, M79. All of these weapons were fully functional (except for ammunition). With the exception of the .22 match rifles, the pistols, BARs, and M1s had their firing pins removed because they were used for drill. The carbines were also used for training, but had their bolts removed and stored in the vault. It would not have taken long to replace firing pins and bolts had the need arose. During our senior year we took the .45s, M1s, and carbines on a field trip to Ft. Sheridan, IL and shot them on the 200 yard rifle range. This was the high point of the senior year.
When you look at the firepower possessed by one JROTC battalion in one of four high schools, all the rabbit people must be having heart attacks. [Remember this was only one battalion; there were three others just like it. Not counted too, were the ANG and Reserve units; all had arms rooms and ranges: 20th Rifle Co, USMCR; 863rd Engineers USAR; Surface Division 9-17(M) USNR, Co. B, 33rd Inf. Div, IL ANG/]
The difference between then and now was that parents taught kids responsibility and it was also expected in their behaviors at school. If you got into trouble in school, you'd be in even more trouble when you got home and your parents found out. The "toughs" who hung out, were shunned by the majority of the school population. Gangs weren't cool or dope or free-wheeling sex. Kids "experimented" with sex and there were a requisite number of unwed pregnancies that took their toll of each year's senior class. There was a kind of shame associated with this: the majority of the girls didn't want it and, though they boasted about their prowess, neither did the boys. Fear was a good deterrent for most of us -- who were doing out most to handle typical teenage angst in other areas. People were a lot more responsibility-oriented in the early 1960's. By the end of the decade, that had changed for the worse and continues to this day.
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