yhtomit
Member
20070403
Law Students at the range
Several weeks ago, my classmate and friend Dan Madar and I finally organized a bunch of our fellow Temple Law students (and one undergraduate) to visit the South Philly Gun and Archery Club.
The fellows there were polite and professional, going over the standard four rules, emphasizing caution, making sure that everyone had ear and eye protection. We had a large enough group to get a discounted rate; all the same, this is an indoor range and (except for VIP members) has a Buy Our Ammo policy. The ammo was pretty reasonable, though -- $13 or very close to it for 50 9mm. In the end, it cost about $54 for each person, the bulk of which was the $40 training / orientation.
We started out with a few 9mm pistols (all Glocks, I think) and a Glock 40; my friend Yasmin decided that even the 9mm was a bit difficult to control, so -- as we ought probably have done in the first place, of course -- we traded in the 40 cal for a Ruger 22/25 .22 caliber.
The experience level was nicely mixed: there were two or three in our group who'd never shot, a few with a small touch of experience, and a few with an even smaller touch of experience than that
William, the only non-law student to come along, is a regular shooter; he brought along some commie longarms (Mosin-Nagant and an SKS), and kindly allowed me to fire a few shots from each -- great fun! I was more accurate with the SKS, but both were pleasant to fire, and the actions felt great. (The sights on the Mosin were even worse than those on the SKS, though -- I think with better sights my accuracy would have been at least slightly better )
Everyone had a good time -- I don't think that the non-shooters were hooked on shooting, per se, but I think all said they enjoyed it and would do it again.
My campaign to get law students (and lawyers for that matter) to shoot guns is based on the sad fact that there are too many nanny staters in the law business; "there ought to be a law" (and the even worse "there already *is* a law!") mindset is pervasive. I've heard more than one law student say that the 2nd Amendment is "obsolete" and advocate the banning of all private gun ownership. Lawyers make up a disproportionate number of legislators, and of course (nearly) all judges are lawyers. (In places where judges are elected, I suppose this might not be true. Any comments?)
So I like to tell some of my fellow students "Oh, you're going to be a [defense attorney / family lawyer / prosecutor / environmental lawyer / squishy business litigator / mediator]? Well, in that case you should certainly learn to fire a gun!"
Or, to the typical "Never touched one, they scare me, and they're bad," I counter with "Ah! Surely you want to be able to say they're bad from a position of knowledge, right?"
At least a few of the professors either have CCWs or are interested in getting one, though I bet that's not true of Prof. David Kairys ("In 1996 Professor Kairys conceived the city lawsuits against handgun manufacturers, and he has been on the city teams in most of the cases.")
Hopefully, we will have another shooting outing at the conclusion of finals -- good time to blow off steam.
timothy
Law Students at the range
Several weeks ago, my classmate and friend Dan Madar and I finally organized a bunch of our fellow Temple Law students (and one undergraduate) to visit the South Philly Gun and Archery Club.
The fellows there were polite and professional, going over the standard four rules, emphasizing caution, making sure that everyone had ear and eye protection. We had a large enough group to get a discounted rate; all the same, this is an indoor range and (except for VIP members) has a Buy Our Ammo policy. The ammo was pretty reasonable, though -- $13 or very close to it for 50 9mm. In the end, it cost about $54 for each person, the bulk of which was the $40 training / orientation.
We started out with a few 9mm pistols (all Glocks, I think) and a Glock 40; my friend Yasmin decided that even the 9mm was a bit difficult to control, so -- as we ought probably have done in the first place, of course -- we traded in the 40 cal for a Ruger 22/25 .22 caliber.
The experience level was nicely mixed: there were two or three in our group who'd never shot, a few with a small touch of experience, and a few with an even smaller touch of experience than that
William, the only non-law student to come along, is a regular shooter; he brought along some commie longarms (Mosin-Nagant and an SKS), and kindly allowed me to fire a few shots from each -- great fun! I was more accurate with the SKS, but both were pleasant to fire, and the actions felt great. (The sights on the Mosin were even worse than those on the SKS, though -- I think with better sights my accuracy would have been at least slightly better )Everyone had a good time -- I don't think that the non-shooters were hooked on shooting, per se, but I think all said they enjoyed it and would do it again.
My campaign to get law students (and lawyers for that matter) to shoot guns is based on the sad fact that there are too many nanny staters in the law business; "there ought to be a law" (and the even worse "there already *is* a law!") mindset is pervasive. I've heard more than one law student say that the 2nd Amendment is "obsolete" and advocate the banning of all private gun ownership. Lawyers make up a disproportionate number of legislators, and of course (nearly) all judges are lawyers. (In places where judges are elected, I suppose this might not be true. Any comments?)
So I like to tell some of my fellow students "Oh, you're going to be a [defense attorney / family lawyer / prosecutor / environmental lawyer / squishy business litigator / mediator]? Well, in that case you should certainly learn to fire a gun!"
Or, to the typical "Never touched one, they scare me, and they're bad," I counter with "Ah! Surely you want to be able to say they're bad from a position of knowledge, right?"
At least a few of the professors either have CCWs or are interested in getting one, though I bet that's not true of Prof. David Kairys ("In 1996 Professor Kairys conceived the city lawsuits against handgun manufacturers, and he has been on the city teams in most of the cases.")
Hopefully, we will have another shooting outing at the conclusion of finals -- good time to blow off steam.
timothy
