I took my teenage son to the range today to break in his new birthday present – a Rem 700 in 30/06. He has a couple of friends that he has known for years. Real nice kids. Their mom, who is also a friend of ours, leans a little to the left of Hillary Clinton and absolutely HATES guns. Well, my son asked me if I would take his friends to the range with us. I told him that that is not a decision I could make. The boys would have to ask their mom, and if it was OK with her, I would be glad to have them come along.
My son called their house, and the next you know, he said to me, “Mrs. XXXX would like to speak with you.” I’m thinking to myself, even though none of this was my idea, “Uh-oh. Here it comes. I’m about to get ripped a new one.” After a chilly greeting she said to me, “So, I hear you want to take my sons shooting. I don’t like this at all, you know.” We’ve known each other for quite a while, so my response was, “Not really shooting. We just need someone down range to hold the targets while we shoot at them.” Knowing full well this is the last thing in the world that I would ever have them do, this got her to laugh a little and helped loosen things up. She asked a ton of questions about what is involved, so I explained all of the safety rules required at the range and that I would give the boys a safety lesson before they even touched a firearm. She was still apprehensive, but to her credit, she felt the boys were old enough to begin to make their own decisions, so she agreed to let them go.
We got the range in the afternoon. At 16 degrees F, it wasn’t the best day to be teaching someone how to shoot, but the boys were dressed warm and were very excited to begin. I explained all of the range rules and safety procedures once again (they were drilled and quizzed on the ride down). Once I was comfortable that they understood everything, I brought out their first firearm, a massive semi-automatic Barrett in .50 BMG. Just kidding. It was really a single shot bolt action .22 with iron sights that I learned to shoot with when I was a kid. I explained sight alignment, trigger control, etc. and set them up one at a time at the shooting bench on the 50-yard plinking range. We started out shooting at a paper targets so I could get a feel for how well they would do. To my surprise, one of the boys put almost 10 out of 10 shots into a 3” bullseye at 50 yds. His brother did almost as well. I guess all of those hours shooting at bad guys on the X-Box must pay off.
Once I felt comfortable that they would both handle a firearm safely, I brought out another bolt action .22, a couple of boxes of ammo, and let them go at it. I set up a bunch of clay birds on the berm and let them blast away. For two kids who were never allowed to be near any firearm before, they both did amazingly well. They were breaking clay birds left and right. They ended up going through almost 200 rounds apiece and had a great time. I didn’t get to shoot much today since I was hanging back and watching the new guys, but seeing what a good time they had and their excitement at busting up the targets was just as much fun. They both thanked me and are looking forward to doing it again. Once of them even said, ”Shooting for real is MUCH more fun than video games.” Amen brother. Now, if I could just get their mom to the range.....
My son called their house, and the next you know, he said to me, “Mrs. XXXX would like to speak with you.” I’m thinking to myself, even though none of this was my idea, “Uh-oh. Here it comes. I’m about to get ripped a new one.” After a chilly greeting she said to me, “So, I hear you want to take my sons shooting. I don’t like this at all, you know.” We’ve known each other for quite a while, so my response was, “Not really shooting. We just need someone down range to hold the targets while we shoot at them.” Knowing full well this is the last thing in the world that I would ever have them do, this got her to laugh a little and helped loosen things up. She asked a ton of questions about what is involved, so I explained all of the safety rules required at the range and that I would give the boys a safety lesson before they even touched a firearm. She was still apprehensive, but to her credit, she felt the boys were old enough to begin to make their own decisions, so she agreed to let them go.
We got the range in the afternoon. At 16 degrees F, it wasn’t the best day to be teaching someone how to shoot, but the boys were dressed warm and were very excited to begin. I explained all of the range rules and safety procedures once again (they were drilled and quizzed on the ride down). Once I was comfortable that they understood everything, I brought out their first firearm, a massive semi-automatic Barrett in .50 BMG. Just kidding. It was really a single shot bolt action .22 with iron sights that I learned to shoot with when I was a kid. I explained sight alignment, trigger control, etc. and set them up one at a time at the shooting bench on the 50-yard plinking range. We started out shooting at a paper targets so I could get a feel for how well they would do. To my surprise, one of the boys put almost 10 out of 10 shots into a 3” bullseye at 50 yds. His brother did almost as well. I guess all of those hours shooting at bad guys on the X-Box must pay off.
Once I felt comfortable that they would both handle a firearm safely, I brought out another bolt action .22, a couple of boxes of ammo, and let them go at it. I set up a bunch of clay birds on the berm and let them blast away. For two kids who were never allowed to be near any firearm before, they both did amazingly well. They were breaking clay birds left and right. They ended up going through almost 200 rounds apiece and had a great time. I didn’t get to shoot much today since I was hanging back and watching the new guys, but seeing what a good time they had and their excitement at busting up the targets was just as much fun. They both thanked me and are looking forward to doing it again. Once of them even said, ”Shooting for real is MUCH more fun than video games.” Amen brother. Now, if I could just get their mom to the range.....
