Why I taught my thirteen-year-old daughter to shoot
Hunting and target shooting, as generations of Americans used to be told, are not about releasing one’s emotions and physical tension with guns, but about mastering them in order to steady the hand and shoot accurately. Schools and summer camps once promoted marksmanship for this reason, as an exercise in self-discipline. This kind of instruction declined in the 1960s, but it used to be as valued and routine a part of growing up as learning to swim. …
I had been a gun owner all my life, and though I rarely hunted anymore, I prized what proficiency I possessed. For several years, we spent Thanksgiving with friends in the Berkshires. A regular feature was a high-spirited skeet shoot rivalry in a field while the turkey cooked. My daughter said she loved the skeet shoot because it taught her that guns didn’t need to be feared. For those who treat them with care and respect, she learned, firearms in the house are not necessarily more lethal than a sharp kitchen knife. …
But that culture is under attack, and the changes go well beyond the dramatic urbanization that has made safe shooting environments harder to access. They are about what guns have come to represent, especially to young men. We’ve witnessed the insidious growth in recent years of films, television programs and video games glorifying the splattering of human bodies with multiple-shot firearms as a sort of badge of manhood — the macho antidote for even petty annoyances. This is not John Wayne and Annie Oakley with quick-draw six-shooters and trick-shot accuracy. It’s the delusion of solving problems in human relationships with massive and messy human extinction. It’s about filling the air with metal.
Blowback
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Sometimes, it’s not a delusion.
OldEnglish on December 22, 2012 at 10:11 AM
OMG, look at this reader comment at WP:
Isn’t a vote Yes for Scotland a vote for independence?
How are they gonna’ keep it with attitudes like this?
cozmo on December 22, 2012 at 10:19 AM
Just goes to show not all morons live in America.
ButterflyDragon on December 22, 2012 at 10:21 AM
Yep…some come from Britain and become hosts on CNN. (Piers Morgan )
I taught all three of my kids how to shoot. And they get their first CCW permit and training paid for by us. And a first carry firearm.
Teaching a child how to take care of themselves and providing the means to do so is part of a parent’s responsibility.
ProfShadow on December 22, 2012 at 10:27 AM
Last time I went through England I was in the Gatwick airport in London and they had officers roaming that place armed to the teeth. Most kids that are taught about firearms respect them and would never use them in the manner the shooter in Ct. did. He was a disturbed individual who’s mother should have secured her weapons better if she did so at all. We had better be careful because they are coming for our guns and not just the so called assault rifles, they want them all.
major dad on December 22, 2012 at 10:30 AM
Will you be allowed to teach her mumbley peg?
“Obviously, it goes beyond guns,” he said of his preference. -Senator Charles Grassley.
Akzed on December 22, 2012 at 10:33 AM
Funny, I thought it might of had something to do with this guy.
Cause it’s a good reason.
Bmore on December 22, 2012 at 10:51 AM
In other words: racism.
Thank Gaia, the concept of self-discipline has been officially expunged from America’s school system.
logis on December 22, 2012 at 11:01 AM
In our culture, a young lady carrying a snub-nose and knowing where to aim is increasingly a good idea.
MelonCollie on December 22, 2012 at 11:04 AM
He lost me with this. I don’t count self righteous a**holes like this as allies.
single stack on December 22, 2012 at 11:06 AM
Or in my case, that frothing atheist who wants me in a looney bin for saying “spit on God’s laws and he might not save you or your kids when danger comes knocking.”
He’s probably just another wangless wonder hiding behind a keyboard, but if he’s really as nuts as he acts, I just got a personal reason to practice the 2nd.
MelonCollie on December 22, 2012 at 11:06 AM
Agree. I guess he gets to decice ahead of time how many attackers there are and the specifics of the attack.
CW on December 22, 2012 at 11:11 AM
My brother-in-law’s 7 year old granddaughter is a very good shot. Has her own rifle.
davidk on December 22, 2012 at 11:13 AM
Yep. Too bad, because it was mostly a good column. He’s on the enemy’s side though.
This is technique the gun grabbers are using–using a wedge to split off the hunters from the gun rights people, even though the groups have a huge overlap. This guy is an unwitting tool of that technique. The gun grabbers play to some folks’ need to feel superior by looking down on gun rights “rednecks”. I read that in Britain, the elite gun club members were some of the worst about protecting gun rights, because they weren’t worried about the little people or basic rights.
juliesa on December 22, 2012 at 11:49 AM
This column reinforces my satisfaction for having bought an ugly black rifle this week. I really did it as big F U to people like this, who would take away my rights.
juliesa on December 22, 2012 at 11:51 AM
He’s the kind of idiot that has no clue what the 2A is about. It’s fools like him that are the greatest danger to our rights; not only our gun rights, but all the others as well. People like him don’t understand that the Constitution restrains and limits government.
single stack on December 22, 2012 at 12:11 PM
When my young nephew was around 13 years old a friend of his told him that a shotgun could not kill anyone. Well, I took my nephew out to the family farm and demonstrated to him that a shotgun was a more than adequate to kill someone. Today his 28 and comes out the family farm every so often to shoot skeet.
Gun grabbers are a bit nuts. You can buy a M-9 Berrata that has 15 round clip from Cabela’s. It would make a nice Christmas gift for me. The handgun that have is a John Browning 1908 patent design that only has a six round clip. My father bought it at pawnshop back in the 1960s. It has been used by the Swedish military and was made by Husqvarna. To fire it you have to squeeze the rear of the handle to relieve a secondary safety mechanism, which I find annoying and making it difficult for good target practice.
SC.Charlie on December 22, 2012 at 12:46 PM
Two easy and politically correct reasons to ALWAYS teach your little girl to shoot:
1. Rape is real.
2. Kidnappings can AND DO happen to “people like us who aren’t on the TV.”
abobo on December 22, 2012 at 12:53 PM
kind of dismaying how so many write their learned discourses about guns with NO idea of what the 2nd Amendment says.
I’d be elated if someone could show me just where the part about hunting is. Never have been able to find it.
In any discussion,this idea needs to be debunked immediately and thoroughly.
irongrampa on December 22, 2012 at 12:58 PM
In the accounting firm where I worked one of the partners mother was raped. The rapist was convicted and executed. Just around the corner from there a man tried to rape a friend of my mother and father decade later. She just went to the front door after someone rang the doorbell. She fought off the attacker. Afterwards she started packing a gun. She was a very, kind and beautiful woman.
SC.Charlie on December 22, 2012 at 1:07 PM
After 13 years when I got out of the Army in ’85 I had no interest in owning an AR15. I had never really liked the M16, and the civilian versions just cost too much. When I bout a 223 for range use it was a CZ 527 Kevlar, that will shoot close to a 1/4 MOA. Then earlier this year I came across a Palmetto M4 clone for $729 and did the deal. I was really attracted to the SIG 556; that’s what got me thinking about a semi-auto 223/5.56.b The SIg was too heavy, almost as heavy as my SKS. That lead me to the AR. I have to admit it’s a classic design, and one of the most efficiently designed rifles ever done.
claudius on December 22, 2012 at 1:09 PM