Well, how about that? London’s city fathers have decided that kids won’t be ruined by watching elite marksmen at work!

As I outlined in Sunday’s column, the people behind the city’s Ticketshare program — an effort to provide Olympic tickets to young people — didn’t originally plan to distribute tickets for shooting-sports events. Some unnamed someone apparently had deemed it “inappropriate” for young eyes to see world-class athletes using firearms in a safe and appropriate manner.

Now, after catching heat, those Terribly Concerned city fathers have changed their minds. Good.

More on the reversal in The Telegraph.

This week’s column is a bit of a rant — a rant against the politically correct but misguided effort to deprive 125,000 youngsters from London the opportunity to watch shooting sports at next year’s Summer Olympics:

That high-pitched whistle you hear is steam shooting from my ears.

Just when I thought the anti-gun crowd couldn’t get any more absurd, the organizers of an effort to provide kids with tickets to next year’s London Summer Olympics went and proved me wrong.

London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, wants to make up to 125,000 tickets available so young Londoners can share in the Olympic experience. The giveaway will extend to every Olympic sport – except shooting.

Reporters for the London Evening Standard quoted an unnamed administration source as saying, “We decided it would not be appropriate. It’s the only sport children will not be able to go to as part of the Ticketshare scheme.”

So, let me get this straight. Internationally sanctioned rifle, pistol or shotgun competitions are “not appropriate” for young eyes to see?

Oh, that’s right. Heaven forbid that they should watch people shoot at inanimate targets; better they should watch some shoot-’em-up crime drama on the BBC.

Heaven forbid that they should see people handling firearms in a safe and responsible manner; better they should learn the finer points of gun brandishing from some rapper’s cop-killa video.

Heaven forbid that they should watch athletes exercising the sort of transcendent skills that come only from countless hours of disciplined practice; better they should gain inspiration from the brick-throwing slackers who instigated the Tottenham riots.

I suppose the Brits’ paranoia toward firearms shouldn’t bother me, but it does. After all, there are people in the United States who would like nothing better than to do away with private gun ownership, and the London Ticketshare shenanigans will almost certainly be tried here as soon as an opportunity arises.

When you’ve lived as long as I have, certain things stick with you.

In 1984, while attending a football game at Mountaineer Field, I watched and cheered as West Virginia University rifle coach Ed Etzel was given an SUV for winning a gold medal in the 50-meter prone rifle event during that year’s Los Angeles Olympics.

Political correctness, though present in other areas, hadn’t yet been used to tamp down Americans’ enthusiasm for firearms. University officials at the time were more than happy to reward Etzel for his skill with a rifle.

I wonder if today they’d extend that same appreciation toward current rifle coach Jon Hammond, a world-class shooter with 2012 Olympic potential. They might, but frankly I doubt they would. Their attitudes toward firearms became achingly apparent in 2003, when they eliminated the school’s rifle team and only reinstated it under extreme pressure from the state Legislature.

The Educated Elite’s attitudes toward guns didn’t change overnight, but rather were shaped by a constant media drumbeat of anti-firearm reporting. Examples are legion, but the one that stands out most in my mind came during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

NBC provided the broadcast for those Games. Rather than televising any of the shooting events – which admittedly aren’t terribly exciting to watch – network moguls sent veteran commentator Dick Enberg to the shooting venues to do a pre-packaged “wraparound” segment for one evening’s broadcast.

Long story short, it was a hit piece. Instead of focusing on the extreme discipline, muscle control and hand-eye coordination successful shooters must have, Enberg focused on the shooting events’ lack of apparent physical activity.

The “kicker,” or close, of Enberg’s piece showed precisely how he felt about the shooting sports. With stentorian eloquence, he declared that most of the Games’ sports embody the Olympic motto, “Faster, higher, stronger,” but then added that for shooting sports, it should be, “Slower, lower … weaker.”

And now the London thing. Grrrrrrrrr …

Kim Rhode (AP photo)

How do you get to the 2012 London Olympics? Same way as you get to Carnegie Hall — practice, practice, practice.

That’s the credo of four-time Olympian and defending world skeet champ Kim Rhode. The Associated Press recently did a fascinating feature on her, and here it is:

NEWHALL, Calif. (AP) — Kim Rhode slips two shells into her 12-gauge shotgun, yells “Pull!” and takes dead-aim on the first target, then a second one whizzing through the air. She hits both cleanly, leaving orange clouds of chalk hanging in the cool air.

She reloads and does it repeatedly, with father and coach Richard Rhode pushing the buttons that remotely launch the targets on the skeet field named for the four-time Olympic medalist.

Rhode has already become the first U.S. athlete nominated to the team for next year’s London Olympics. But she’s not taking it easy while others train, wait and worry about making the Summer Games.

“I choose to shoot every day because I want to push myself through the highs and the lows that come with anything,” she said during a break at Oaktree Gun Club off Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles.

“It’s a lot of hard work and drilling and repetition. That mental side of the game really plays in. There’s so many little things that go into it.”

Training means shooting 500 to 1,000 rounds per day, usually seven days a week.

Rhode spends a lot of money on lead going for more gold. She goes through four cases of shells at $100 a box and $300 worth of targets, costing her about $700 every day of training. Her custom-made, 9-pound Italian shotgun is worth about $20,000.

The 31-year-old from El Monte, Calif., has sponsors who help pay for her training and travel to competitions. She earns money through endorsements, coaching, giving speeches and signing autographs.

The longest break from training she’s taken was a two-week honeymoon to the South Pacific two years ago after marrying Mike Harryman, who works in heating and air conditioning.

Rhode (pronounced Roady) got into the sport as a youngster accompanying her parents to the shooting range. Her mother, Sharon, was shooting when she was eight months pregnant with her only daughter.

“Some people bowl, we went and shot skeet,” Richard said. “It was very obvious at a very young age that she had the capability of shooting really good scores.”

Rhode first competed in skeet as a 10-year-old.

“It’s something that I really gravitated towards because of the challenge,” she said, noting she’s 5-foot-4. “It’s one of the few games that doesn’t matter how big or how small you are, you really are on an equal playing field. Everybody is equal when you step out on that line.”

Her father added, “It’s not strength. It’s eye-hand coordination, the ability to slow everything down and shoot.”

Rhode won her first Olympic medal in double trap at the 1996 Atlanta Games, becoming at 17 the youngest female shooting champion in the games’ history. She added a bronze medal in 2000 and another gold in 2004.

After women’s double trap was dropped from the Olympics, Rhode changed to skeet and won a silver at the 2008 Beijing Games. She proudly shows visitors her medals and the well-worn ribbons they hang on.

In London, Rhode has a chance to become the first American athlete to medal in five consecutive Olympics in an individual sport.

“Definitely, I don’t think London will be my last (Olympics), I don’t think 2016 will be my last,” she said. “If I can continue to perform at that level, then you’ll definitely see me. It’s something you can do for years and years.”

At the same time, the down-to-earth defending world skeet champion with the long ponytail, French manicure and diamond stud earrings is realistic.

“There are some really fantastic shooters, especially some of the people that I’m coaching and training, they very easily could overtake me at any point,” she said.

Rhode has overcome her shotgun being stolen after the Beijing Olympics (she got it back), an injury to her shoulder in a skiing accident, and most recently, surgery to remove a 2-inch cyst in her breast that was non-cancerous.

Her shoulder area is still sore, so she has yet to return to full strength as she prepares for a competition in Colorado Springs, Colo., that will decide the team for the Pan American Games this fall.

When Rhode isn’t training, she’s studying to finish three more classes to earn a college degree in food marketing and agribusiness, collecting rare children’s books and antiques, and tending to her classic car collection that includes a Cobra she built from a kit.

If prodded, Rhode will show off some of her Annie Oakley-like skills, including tossing a dime in the air and shooting it to smithereens.

“I love this with a passion,” she said. “I do it for a lot of fun, but at the same time it’s just a game.”