Hokkmike
Member
"Always know your target and what's behind it." Comes to mind.
Good thing she isn't a combat vet that would react differently......like flash back and take care of the situation themselves.Sometimes, if the wind is right and I know the sound will carry to my liberal neighbor down the road, I will do a mag dump on my AK. It's a legal semi-auto civilian gun, but I am quite proficient at bump firing using my index finger alone. I can dump 30 in about three seconds. This irritates her and amuses me. She used to call the Sheriff but she gave up on that when he told her to move if she didn't like it. He thought it was pretty neat and he came over to my place and I taught him how to do it! The cops in Henry County , Illinois are pretty cool. There are a lot of firearms manufactures in the area and the sound of machine gun fire does not cause the sheriff or any of his deputies to so much as raise an eyebrow.
So....to answer the OPs question, Yes, I think AKs WERE invented to make bloodcurdling noises and only occasionally to actually hit what one is aiming at. That's what ARs are for.
I DO love to occasionally just walk out the back door and mindlessly blast away at nothing in particular. My liberal neighbor knows this, too.
And THAT irritates her even more.
Well, it was their ammo to waste, I suppose. Just because they did something you didn't like doesn't make them idiots.The other day at the range, two idiots wasted a few boxes of ammo shooting their ARs fast and trying to film each other shooting with flames coming out of short barres. Idiots.
Or shoot to have fun, whatever that looks like to the individual. Fortunately its up to them to decide what that looks like for them.Shoot to train or hit the target
I'd say you were doing some good training. A laser sight is a great tool for dry firing the same drill.Over the weekend, I spent a little time shooting aimlessly for a very specific purpose. I was working on weak-hand-only pistol shooting, and was having a hard time tracking the sights, not to mention fighting anticipation and sympathetic hand-squeezing with trigger pull. In short, I was shooting like garbage. So set aside the target that I had been shooting at (and generating a shotgun-type pattern on!). I pointed the gun at the backstop/berm, and just shot for a while. I just shot while trying to watch the sights and hold the gun steady. This relieved me of the psychological need to try to "grab" the shot while the gun wobbled (and boy did it wobble - left-handed shooting takes work) through the bullseye. I wasn't trying to hit anything in particular - I was just paying attention to the gun, my grip, the trigger pull, etc. I shot slow this way, and then shot some faster this way (not actually fast, but far more than one shot per second). Then I put the target back out and shot much better in terms of results on the cardboard.
I did all of this on purpose. I was literally shooting "aimlessly," but it was anything but pointless. Some of the other people at the range may have thought I was wasting ammo, but I got more out of the ~30 shots I fired than I did all the shots before I took away the target.
I don’t shoot things just to have them go bang unless I’m checking the function of a used firearm. And even then it’s only a couple rounds. Then I’m shooting for accuracy/consistency.
Yeah our Amish neighbors make opening day of deer season sound like Dday."Shooting Aimlessly" is what all to many do during deer season here in Iowa.
I'm glad to hear there are people taking it out on rocks and stumps instead.
Dummy rounds and having my dad yell "WORRY ABOUT WHAT THE GUN IS GOING TO DO TO YOUR TARGET, NOT YOU!" did it for me. That and being taught the correct way to hold whichever type of gun it is.I'm a great believer in dry firing (I dry fire several times more trigger pulls and minutes than live fire). But a lot of my issue was around anticipating recoil/flinching/pushing. Dry fire won't fix that, since it's a psychological problem more than a purely mechanical one - laser or no laser! I can pull a trigger straight to the rear with my left hand... doing it when my brain knows my left hand is going to have to deal with recoil is harder.* For me to improve what I was working on, there was really no other way forward than to put some rounds in the backstop.
* Some people are just naturally flinchers/pushers, and have to work hard to overcome that reflexive impulse. I'm one of them. I wish it were not so, but it's true. So I've long since figured out the things that "cure" me of it - or at least drive it into remission!
Dummy rounds and having my dad yell "WORRY ABOUT WHAT THE GUN IS GOING TO DO TO YOUR TARGET, NOT YOU!" did it for me. That and being taught the correct way to hold whichever type of gun it is.