Your Dad's Wisdom

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VHinch

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The "dads guns" thread got me thinking about little bits of shooting wisdom my dad has given me over the years.

"Shooting is simple, son. Just think about bras! Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze."

"The only safety that matters is the one between your ears"

And of course, "Keep your booger hook off of the bang button and you'll be fine."

What are yours? This should be a fun thread.

V
 
While holding a S&W safety hammerless - "Don't ever point this at anything you don't intend to kill."
 
You know, the fact that my dad made me sit at a bench, or hunt rabbits and squirrels handing me that 1 cartrige at a time used to drive me NUTS!! "Make this shot count son. It's the only one you've got." Safety lectures EVERY time we went shooting or hunting, too.

A lot of kids I knew were turned loose with 10-22's right out of the gate.

Now 20 years later, I know he was right. I've never had an AD/ND yet. Some of the kids that I saw *turned loose* have had some bad accidents.

And now as a hunter ed instructor I see that fully 80% of hunting accidents in this state are young shooters with 22's.

Guess dad was right after all.
 
'bout says it all regarding my dad

"I've taught you how to shoot, I've taught you about about guns n' safety and you are old enough now so here's your first gun" (He hands me a box containing an absolutely BEAUTIFUL .22 rifle) "Oh and if I EVER see you mishandle it I'm gonna take it away from you and bust it over your head!"
 
My dad also didn't get me the semi auto .22 I wanted. He suggested a bolt action (with 7rd mag) IIRC You only got one shot but could do follow up IF you hit it. Shotgun was 16guage break open with exposed hammer. Still recall when I bought a Monkey Wards pump westernfield (kinda like cheap Mossberg) I shot at running rabbit and missed. I started to lower gun as I KNEW reloading would take longer then I had shot when I realized just pump and shoot so I did and got rabbit.
From the beginning if I was careless with gun (plastic darts with rubber suction cups to shotgun) he would take it away for months. It NEVER happened with any gun above BB gun. (any my brother had shot out that window in old shed so I got bb gun back the next day)
 
My father hates guns in any form and would never have considered letting me have one. I take great delight in telling him he drove me to them by his irrational fears, he also hates motorcycles and I have two of them. In a twisted way you could say he's given me two hobbies I enjoy tremendously. :D
 
(shooting skeet at a gun club in the Jersey Pines with a scout group, early 80s, lots of 1st time shooters, including me, and some who didn't want to fire a 12ga twice!)

EDIT: Before I went out to shoot, my dad called me aside, and did a "review" of safety. At the end, he told me to get any of the unloaded guns from the rack. Took me a second, and I said "Dad, they're all loaded." He asked how I knew. "Dad, they're guns. They're loaded, right?" He said "Good job. Ours is in the car, go get it on your way out there." Knowing my dad, if I had grabbed any of the ones inside, I would've been sitting old copies of Field & Stream a good part of the morning.

(other dads)Hey, how many more do you want for your son?
(My dad, coming out from cleaning up breakfast) How many shells has he shot?
(other dads)Uh, 'bout 5.
(My dad) Well, at least let get him to shoot the rest of the box then.:mad:
(other dads)No, I mean he shot 5 boxes; do you want him to shoot more?
(My dad) Kee-RIST! :what: Didn't anybody show him how to hold it better then?
(other dads)Naw, we figured he was switching shoulders so much it wouldn't matter.
(My dad) He's been switching shoulders the whole time? How's he been shooting?
(other dads) 'Bout 8 out of every 10, better now and then.
(My dad) Let him shoot all he wants til it gets dark.

When we got home, my dad showed the bruises on my shoulders to my uncle, and they both laughed. Proud laughter. Next time out, my dad showed me how to "tuck in" tighter, and let me use his old "duck gun". Wasn't quite as tall as I was, but it was close.:)
 
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May not be highroad but my dad taught me several good rules:

1. Don't break the law. It becomes a bad habit that is hard to break.
2. Don't break little laws. Jaywalking is a dumb reason to have to talk to a cop. This is facilitated by having a habit of keeping the first rule.
3. If you gotta, make sure you only break one rule at a time. example: Getting pulled over for speeding is a bad day. Getting pulled over for speeding with an expired license, while drunk, having cocaine residue on the busted off rear-view mirror, an unlicensed handgun in the glove compartment and a dead hooker in the trunk makes for a really bad day.
 
Guns are bad. Only the police should have guns, you know. You're more likely to hurt yourself with one, or have a criminal take one from you.:what:

Sometimes it's not a good idea to listen to your father. :neener:
 
Dad wan't into guns....

but he wasn't against, or afraid of them either (gramps 12 ga. was in his closset).

When I completed the hunters safety class at 13, and asked for a 20 ga. for Christmas.....I was floored (actually elated :D ) that he got me one.

His only advice .... "don't screw around with that thing, it's not a toy" ....

was followed up with a warning ... "and if you do, you'll never see it again."

I didn't lose the break action Ithica 20GA ;)

my brother's Crossman pellet gun is another story....:eek:
 
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My dad never really had an interest in guns or hunting , that was all Papaw. I got really close to Papaw before he died, I was always amazed when he told stories of hunting when he was younger. I never got to see Papaw shoot let alone handle a gun until one summer I stayed for a few days. Papaw calls me to the living room to show me something and pulls out a leather pouch from his desk, inside was a S&W .38 pre-victory model that his uncle used as a police officer. He gave me a long safety talk about handling firearms and even let me hold the pistol, as I grinned ear to ear I noticed how heavy and strong it felt in my hands. Evidently, with the exception of myself and Mamaw, no one else knew anything about the pistol not even his nine children, that made our relationship all the more special.
 
When I was growing up, Dad had two guns in cases in his closet. They were, I was told, "elephant guns". I had no exposure to firearms until I married into a hunting family 20 years ago. Now, I can't get enough handguns, rifles, shotguns and muzzleloaders.

When I got into hunting, I rekindled my dad's interest (he had not hunted since his teenage years) and I finally learned that the long guns in the closet were a .22 and a 12 gauge shotgun. His collection has grown since then, too.

:D

He imparted no gun wisdom on me, but made up for it later by being a good hunting partner.
 
Here's my earliest recollection of my dad's wisdom. My father and his younger brother were shooting my dad's new Model 12 20 ga. in the road in front of my grandparent's house. They weren't aiming at anything, just seeing if it worked and trying not to hit the apple trees in the orchard - the apples supported three families. (You know, I never did eat an apple off a tree in all those years. We only got the ones off the ground.)

But I digress.

Me: Let me try, let me try.
Dad: No son, it's not a good idea.
Me: Let me try, I wanna try. Waaaaaaahhhhhh...
Dad: Stern look.

This goes on for awhile, but finally he relents. He cradles the new shotgun with both hands and holds it against my shoulder while I pull the trigger on a hi-brass #6 and get knocked on my back in the dirt and gravel.

From then on, then being the age of 4 going on 5, I really trusted my father when it came to guns.

John
 
My fathers advise was stay away from guns since they are too dangerous, and should be banned from society. He still
believes only social deviants, such as "rednecks and hoodlums, are the only people that are interested in firearms.
 
True story: When I was 13 or 14, I was deer hunting with my Dad, just up the holler from the little town where we lived. Dad had put me on stand, and he was working a little one-man drive around the ridge towards me. I was hunting with a Winchester Model 37 single-shot 16-gauge with slugs at the time, and Dad had told me my cardinal rules for hunting with that gun over and over and over again. "Don't put it to your shoulder until you SEE the deer. Don't pull the hammer back until you SEE antlers. Don't pull the trigger unless it's close enough that you KNOW you can kill it."

We didn't know it at the time, but we weren't alone in the woods that day. An old (he must have been pushing 80) man named Cuthbert Simms (yeah, that was really his name) who lived a few houses up the road from us decided to go hunting that day too. It was state law by that point that everyone had to wear orange when they were deer hunting, but apparently Mr. Simms hadn't gotten that memo. He had on a green pair of pants, a grey wool sweater, a white button-up shirt, and a grey felt hat.

So as I'm sitting there on that stump, with barely-teenaged eyes and ears peeled, Mr. Simms came crashing along through a thicket of mountain laurel, right along in front of me. All I could see through the thick brush was grey fur and white belly, and I raised the gun to my shoulder, but I didn't cock it. A couple of things stopped me. I hadn't seen any antlers yet, and Dad had really hammered those rules into me. Plus, I knew that if my first shot wasn't perfect, I probably wouldn't get another. By the time I reloaded that single-shot, the deer would be long gone. So I was frozen there with my gun up, waiting for a break in the thicket, heart hammering and nerves on edge.

I'm not a bit embarassed to say that when Mr. Simms came out of that thicket and I saw it was a person and not a deer, I dropped the gun and threw up right there on the spot. To this day I'm thankful for my Dad's rules and his insistence on them, and everytime I take my son in the woods I think about Mr. Simms and say a little prayer that my son will never have that close a call.
 
cbsbyte said:
...only social deviants, such as "rednecks and hoodlums"
Click to expand...
If he'd have said sexual deviants I would have scored a hat trick there.

Although I don't think I qualify as a hoodlum anymore. It's been years since I hoodled anybody.
 
Dad Taught Me Knives

My dad was never particularly "into" guns. Not against them, but no real motivation in that direction. That was more my mom's dad.

Dad got me a Crosman pistol when I turned 12, but the fire destroyed it.

He also gave me a pocket knife and, later, a set of Xacto knives.

He taught me the basics of knives: how to cut AWAY from yourself, how to sharpen without ruining the blade, how to turn a piece of wood into a piece of art.

"The edge is sharp. It will cut whatever's in front of it. Make sure that's not you."

That small nugget of wisdom has protected me in all kinds of contexts, most of which haven't involved knives; some of which have involved guns.

Always cut away from yourself. Always shoot away from yourself. The sharp/pointy/business end points away. It will cut/perforate whatever's in front of it. Make sure that's not you -- or anyone you care about.

I still have the pocket knife.
 
Actually, all the gun best wisdom my Dad gave me was what he DIDN'T say. Basically, he taught me wingshooting and basic rifle marksmanship.

But what he NEVER said were things about safety, or using guns responsibly. Sounds stupid, BUT it was his faith in me, in understanding the responsibilty of having/owning/shooting guns, that made me a "safe shooter"...

It Boils down to the respect I had for him, and the fact that I would NEVER want to disapoint him...Still with me to this day, even though he's been gone many years, now.
 
My Dad was captain of his high-school rifle team, and when I was nine or ten he taught me breath and trigger control. He also taught me how to slow my heart rate down to thirty or forty beats per minute and take a shot between beats. I've long since lost that ability, but I still have some control over my blood pressure. I shot on my college rifle team for a while, and what Dad taught me really came in handy there.

When I was about fifteen, and Dad was about forty, he decided to learn how to shoot a shotgun. We lived out in the country and had a hand thrower, so I got to throw a lot of clay pigeons for him. For the first year, he missed almost every single one, unless it was going straight away. The second year, he began to hit them occasionally. By the third year (the last year I lived at home), he could hit anything that flew, at any speed or angle. That fall, all the men in the community went dove hunting together, and my dad limited out without missing a single bird. One other guy, who prided himself on being a good shot, missed once that day. It drove him nuts!

Edit: Dad died about four months ago, three days after his 63rd birthday. Rest in peace, Dad.
 
Doesn't have to do with guns but I'll never forget these "words of wisdom" I got from him.

I was in my early teens and was begging for some money to buy something or other, don't even remember what it was now.
Dad said "I never had one of those when I was a kid"
I said "But don't you want me to have the things you never had when you were a kid?"
He replied "Never had the clap when I was a kid, don't want you to have that either."
Hard to argue with logic like that.
 
this I'm going to remember.....

"Don't put it to your shoulder until you SEE the deer. Don't pull the hammer back until you SEE antlers. Don't pull the trigger unless it's close enough that you KNOW you can kill it."
Click to expand...

nice and simple.......

thanks for sharing the story
 
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