As some of you have seen from my post on
Responsible Gun Ownership and Parenting I am a big proponent of gun safety, especially when children are living in the household. One of the best ways to teach children gun safety would be to actually give them hands on experience and teach them to shoot.
This article will discuss a few safety topics and feature the results of the first time I took my oldest son to the range with me. I highly recommend finding a range in your area and practice as often as you can. I am lucky to have a place here in Tulsa that offers great training as well as a great range. 2A Shooting Center is my go to range (when I can't get out to the wide open country)
The first thing you need to make sure of is that the child is mature enough to handle a firearm and able to understand and comprehend rules.
There are four main rules:
- Always treat the gun as if it is loaded.
- Never point the gun at something you are not willing to kill or destroy.
- Always know your target and what is behind it.
- Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire.
The next thing I did is to make sure my son knew the gun we would be using and how to work it, use the safety, load and reload it.
In the case of my son's first trip to the range, we took my Ruger SR40 .40 caliber pistol and my Colt M4 semi-automatic rifle chambered in .22LR. The pistol was a bit big for him (he was 12 at the time) and he didn't feel comfortable shooting it. For this reason, he only shot the .22 rifle.
| Ruger SR40 Pistol | Colt M4 .22LR Rifle |
|---|---|
 |  |
After getting to the range we had to obviously sign some paperwork making sure we knew the range rules and make sure we had our ear and eye protection. Then the fun came. We got our lane and selected our targets and had fun. Spent about an hour or 2 shooting and reloading. I recommend having multiple magazines if you are going to shoot a lot of ammo so you don't spend half our time reloading your single magazine.
Below is a Video of my son shooting at the range his first time.
Below is his target afterwards
Upvote for appropriate use of yunk tag and awesome parenting.
I upvoted you and followed you
I think there would be more safety policies for the shooting since is for children (might want to kill something they don't like or agree with) however I really like the video, from an educational point of view, since knowing what a gun really does help people to understand at a young age what to and not to do, and also it helps them to defend themselves when they grow since they already know how to use it properly, or have a sense of it after the training, It is a great post and this is my opinion. Other people might not agree but it's fine. The video seemed not to be available thou. :)
the video is a link through my facebook account. I'll see if i can host it somewhere else.
I was raised around guns my whole life. Owned my first gun when I was 13. I was raised to understand they are a tool for hunting and protection. I feel I was mentally mature enough to handle them and my parents felt the same. If I for a second didn't think my son was mature or responsible enough to handle a gun, he wouldn't touch it.
I came here for the yunk and stayed for the guns lol
Best comment ever :) Yunked
It's good to get kids out shooting guns so they understand and respect firearms for the tool they are.
I just learned to shoot lately hehe
https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@arielthemermaid/i-m-a-girl-who-likes-big-guns-hehe
I took my wife to the range for the first time about 4 yrs ago on valetines day weekend. She was so scared. Now she's hooked. She goes to the ladies night at the range a couple times a month if she can.
Pretty good results for her first time shooting !
Upvote for yunk tag! Teaching kids about firearm safety is so important. This can save more lives if one kid in the room full of misfits knows how to properly handle a gun. #yunk #safetyfirst
Don't forget to teach them one more rule:
If you fumble a weapon, don't try to catch it. Let it fall.
This is a hard one to learn because it is instinct to catch things we are in the process of dropping. Never try to catch a pistol. Rifle? It depends, but you should have a sling.
.22 is a good gun to start with. When I was 12 I used to grab a 12 gauge and hit the woods.
I was taught to never treat it like a toy and everything turned out fine.
Funny enough I don't even own a gun these days.
my first gun was a .410 shotgun. But my first gun i shot was my dads 12 gauge.
A good old single shot for me.
Sucked to hunt deer with lol.
my .410 was a single shot. I still had it until recently. Gave it to my mother in law since they live out in the country and needed something to deal with some pests. The .12 gauge was a pump action so it had about 6 rounds if I recall correctly
This post received a 1.6% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @satchmo! For more information, click here!
Just upvoted and followed you
Thanks, I appreciate it!
What .22 competition pistol can you recommend for shooting at a fire range?
Sorry for the delay, I've been busy recently. I honestly don't know. I don't do any competition shooting and haven't shot a .22 pistol in many years.