some pre-range training, perhaps?
A friend and I recently organized a trip involving several of our law-school classmates to a local indoor range.
I created a flyer that I sent to everyone in the group, most of whom had never fired a gun before, and a few of whom are/were overcoming long-ingrained fear of guns. Your friend isn't exactly the same audience, but perhaps some calm discussion (with no guns present, except perhaps a blue / red training gun if you have one to hand
) and familiarization with rules, procedures, etc, would make a trip to the range far more fun and less stressful.
(I put the bulk of the text from my flyer below, take it for what you will.)
Also, if possible, and again a super-unloaded gun or a training gun would be ideal, I know I'd have liked a better explanation before my first range trip of what to do in the event of a FTL, FTF, or FTE. Basically, any TLA that begins with an F
"You're going to knock stoutly here with your palm, you're going to pull back on the slide while pushing forward with the grip, and then bang!"
I'm by no means an expert shot or expert anything else, but I know the first time the slide went back and I didn't know what to do (firing rented guns with my basically non-gunny father), it was a panicky feeling. Is there a cartridge in there that's going to explode?! The more I learn, the better I know how to be safe, and the safer I feel, but there's nothing intuitive about what to do when guns act other than as expected. Demystifying makes things safer and more fun all 'round!
timothy
------------------ Below is the bulk of the text that went to our shooting-range initiates -----------------------
A few suggestions
First, don't panic. Gun ranges are loud (sorry 'bout that), reek of gunpowder, and usually are practical rather than luxurious. Even with the hearing protection shooters wear, the sound of nearly any handgun is loud enough to be disconcerting, and for ammunition more powerful than .22, at close range the blast can be felt through the chest as well as heard. That's not the only source of noise, though: because of well-intended regulations (or, alternatively, as an inevitable result of enlightened self-interest), shooting ranges tend to be extremely well ventilated, by means of noisy fans. Also, there's a strange sensation that many people experience when wearing sound-blocking hearing protection (as we will all be wearing) of experiencing a background hiss, an odd sense of anticipating and imagining sound, rather than actually hearing it. The light at indoor ranges is usually dim to moderate (and fluorescent), not bright. If you consider these facts calmly in advance, none of them should be very bothersome. Remember that our prime goal is recreation, enjoyment and knowledge.
Therefore, come in prepared to have good clean fun, safely. Wikipedia has a decent overview of the usual gun-safety rules (complete with YouTube videos rife with delicious Shadenfreude) at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_safety
The details as presented at the Club may vary, but the thrust will be similar. Most gun range safety officers take an understandably dim and humorless view of anything other than sober, deliberate adherence to their rules. Jokes or horseplay that might seem reasonable among friends in some other circumstances don't make sense in a room full of dangerous weapons.
My favorite gun safety rule is "Keep your finger off the trigger until you intend to fire." Partly because of movies and television (goes one story), new shooters expect to have their trigger finger actually on the trigger anytime the gun is in sight. It's certainly tempting to rest it there -- it is the "trigger finger," right? Don't. Typical modern guns are nigh incapable of firing without direct pressure on the trigger except in the most outlandish and contrived circumstances (there are exceptions, which are only 98% as contrived), so keeping your finger off the trigger is a powerful step toward not causing the gun to make noise prematurely.
Don't shoot on an empty stomach or an over-full one. You want to be alert and energetic.
It's worth repeating already: guns are loud. Try to prepare for this mentally. Some people (like me) prefer to wear both in-ear and over-the-ear hearing protection; the protection is fairly cheap and effective, while ears are fragile and cloning is iffy. Having heard just a few shots at close range without protection in place, I assert that if it were possible to leave my ears in a safety deposit box outside the range and reattach them afterwards, I'd look into it. Unless the safety officer at the range says otherwise and with evident good reason, any time you're in the firing range, you should have on your hearing protection. [Aside: consider the considerable danger to shooter's hearing -- costly and tragic -- that is unintentionally caused by restrictions on noise suppressors (sometimes called "silencers") under current BATFE rules, as well as under many even-more-restrictive state laws.]
Eyes, similarwise. Wear your eye protection! Remember the lab warning "Do not look in laser with remaining eye." If you're firing an autoloader, as I suspect most of us will be, there will be some flying brass in the air; the outer shell (case) from each cartridge you fire has to go someplace to make room for the next one in line. Typically, that empty case is ejected with some force to the shooter's right and rear, and it's hot. This case can be whipped quite a ways, can ricochet off another surface, etc, and is just generally less predictable than you'd probably like it to be. For those shooting revolvers, the brass from each cartridge will stay in the revolver's cylinder ("shooty-bullet-holder-spinny-thing") until you remove it to reload the gun, but it's not necessarily brass from your own gun that you should be worried about. Besides these brass tubes (which you can know about and expect), eye protection is also to minimize the risk of injury if anything else should decide to hurtle toward your eyes. (Even a mote of dust could be propelled in an unlucky direction.) So there's a good reason besides range rules to keep your eye protection in place: the thought that it's better than a hot piece of brass bashing your cornea, whether it came from your gun or one four lanes down. Don't be the inspiration for a cautionary limerick.
New shooters often fear recoil -- the "kick" of a gun when it's fired. Try rather to anticipate recoil (Newton says it has to happen, after all) and let your body absorb it wholistically. There's a reason guns are typically shaped to fit the whole hand, and not just a few fingers. Think of your hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders (and so on, right down to both pinky toes) as part of a tough, elastic chain that can handily, happily tame the recoil of any small handgun caliber if you keep it well coupled to the gun you're firing and properly poised. By contrast, holding the gun loosely or limply out of fear or anxiety is a guaranteed route to further discomfiture if not actual discomfort, and -- what's worse -- is a frequent cause of an unintended "followup shot" as a result of deciding too late to keep a grip on the gun, after the trigger's been pulled. Anyone who's swung a baseball bat (especially an aluminum one) with the handle held loosely rather than tightly has probably felt the jarring that results from a nervous, too-light grip.
In fact, the pressure with which you might hold onto a baseball bat is probably a passable guide for the firmness of your grip on the gun; slightly past the squeeze of a firm handshake, but less than needed for an angry strangling. There's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to holding the gun; if your muscles are clamped so tightly that your arms or shoulders are quivering with the tension, you'll have a lot less fun (and lower accuracy). If you find your muscles tensing too much, concentrate on slow and steady breathing.
Ammunition is not included in the price of training; that's because the management knows that shooting is fun and "just a few more rounds" is easy for most shooters to rationalize.
After we're done, wash your hands thoroughly. There are nasty things in ammunition (lead, solvents, primer chemicals) that -- going by conventional wisdom -- are no big deal as long as they don't hang around. For pregnant persons, it's a different story. If you know, believe, or suspect you might be a pregnant person, consult your doctor before deciding to shoot recreationally.
