No feeling in shooting hand

[shadowen]

Alright, I've got a situation I could some help with...

So I've been trying to help a female friend of mine learn to shoot handguns with accuracy. She has some experience with long guns (shotguns specifically) having grown up on a farm, but not a huge amount.

I know she has an obvious flinch, which I'm trying to help her with, but there is potentially another issue here which I could use some help with trying to figure out how to approach...

Basically she has a rare neurological problem where she can't really feel anything on the right side of her body (which is also her strong hand, and thus her trigger hand). This condition is purely limited to the feeling on her right side (as well as her general sense of hot/cold being messed up). She has full range of motion of her entire body and you wouldn't know there was a problem until she told you.

She's been this way for a long time (it set in around puberty if I recall correctly) and its one of those situations where things she could do before the issue set in are easier than trying to pick up something her body has never done before. Of course shooting handguns is something completely new to her.

I'm trying to help her work on trigger control but its not easy going - I worry that since she can't feel with that right side, she can't really 'feel' the trigger and how she is squeezing it. I have her shooting mostly out of single action pistols at this point hoping that the lighter trigger would help somehow.

I've thought about maybe trying to switch her to shooting left handed; but really I'm looking for any ideas on how to approach training her moving forward.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Is there any reason she can't shoot with her left hand? If her right hand is that impaired, and her left hand is fully functional, that would seem the obvious approach - but I hesitate to assume too much.

 

[Serenity]

That was the first thing that I thought, too. If someone has never done something before, it is much easier to learn to do with the off hand.

 

[critter]

I fail to see how she can keep a handgun in proper control and properly control the trigger (& perhaps safety + mag catch, etc) with no hand feeling.

I'd have to work on using the 'good' hand.

 

[mortablunt]

Teach her to shoot handguns lefty. That's how I've done airsoft and read handguns since I have a soft tissue injury in my right arm that makes repeated sharp shock impacts very uncomfortable.

 

[allaroundhunter]

I see it as a danger to have her shooting with her "strong hand" if she in fact has no feeling in it. Try getting her to use her "weak hand", she will get used to it

 

[dprice3844444]

has she been checked for a pinched nerve in the neck or carpal tunnel syndrome?