Monday, March 14, 2005
Safety happens
After I recovered from the moonbat attack Saturday afternoon, I spent Sunday in much more enjoyable surroundings......a Boy Scout camp. I had been asked to give a short class on firearms safety and shotgun shooting to the scouts of Troop 99, so Sunday morning I loaded up the car with shotguns, ammo, safety glasses, earplugs, and all the various shooting stuff that I cart around and drove 60 miles out of town to their campsite. They're quite a fine bunch of kids. Everyone paid attention to the lecture and responded well to my questions and suggestions. After the standard 45 minute "Introduction to Safe Firearms Handling" and a demonstration of what a 20 gauge shotgun will do to a gallon jug of water (just to be really sure I had their attention), we began shooting.
I was working by myself with a large group of kids, so I limited the shooting portion of the program to one shooter at a time and requested that only one gun at a time be out of its' case. If the kids wanted to use their own gun instead of the ones I had that was just fine, but mine were put away before they uncased theirs. Call me chicken, but before I turn my back on a group of inexperienced shooters I want to make damn sure they're unarmed. I even assigned one of the parents as the "truck monitor" to make sure that nobody messed with the cased guns or ammo while I was busy coaching. Everyone understood and agreed that it was a good idea in that situation (20 kids, 6 guns, 1 instructor).
About half way through the group of kids, I heard a young voice from behind me say "Look what we found. Can we shoot this one?"
Think about that for a second. I'll repeat it just to be clear: "Look what we found. Can we shoot this one?"
The young man I was coaching had just fired a shot, so I took the empty gun from him and turned to see just what was going on. One of the boys who had already shot had wandered off and returned with a very rusty, very short, sawed off pump shotgun. It had been chopped at both ends and had a crude, home made pistol grip replacing the butt stock. It was covered with dirt and rust, and appeared to have been outside for quite a while. The young man carried the gun (muzzle up, finger off the trigger, action open.....he had been listening) over to the scout master and handed it to him.
I thought the poor man was going to have a stroke.
A round of intense questioning determined that the two boys had been exploring away from the camp and had found the shotgun next to an abandoned truck, surrounded by beer cans. No, they didn't see any skeletons, bones, or dead bodies and no, there weren't any other guns around the truck. Even though we were dealing with Boy Scouts, the "scene of the find" was investigated and found to be as they had described.
After everyone calmed down a bit, I took the opportunity to praise the boys for their safe handling of the gun, and to mention that even though they had handled it properly it would have been better to leave it where it was and bring an adult to the gun instead of bringing the gun to the adults. I didn't come down on them too hard though, because they did handle it safely and they did bring it to the person in charge.
Several parents approached me afterwards to say "thank you" for the shooting experience and the safety lecture. Having the kids actually find a gun in the desert within an hour of the safety lecture really drove home the point to parents. Kids need to be taught how to handle guns safely.
I couldn't have scripted a better demonstration.
I was working by myself with a large group of kids, so I limited the shooting portion of the program to one shooter at a time and requested that only one gun at a time be out of its' case. If the kids wanted to use their own gun instead of the ones I had that was just fine, but mine were put away before they uncased theirs. Call me chicken, but before I turn my back on a group of inexperienced shooters I want to make damn sure they're unarmed. I even assigned one of the parents as the "truck monitor" to make sure that nobody messed with the cased guns or ammo while I was busy coaching. Everyone understood and agreed that it was a good idea in that situation (20 kids, 6 guns, 1 instructor).
About half way through the group of kids, I heard a young voice from behind me say "Look what we found. Can we shoot this one?"
Think about that for a second. I'll repeat it just to be clear: "Look what we found. Can we shoot this one?"
The young man I was coaching had just fired a shot, so I took the empty gun from him and turned to see just what was going on. One of the boys who had already shot had wandered off and returned with a very rusty, very short, sawed off pump shotgun. It had been chopped at both ends and had a crude, home made pistol grip replacing the butt stock. It was covered with dirt and rust, and appeared to have been outside for quite a while. The young man carried the gun (muzzle up, finger off the trigger, action open.....he had been listening) over to the scout master and handed it to him.
I thought the poor man was going to have a stroke.
A round of intense questioning determined that the two boys had been exploring away from the camp and had found the shotgun next to an abandoned truck, surrounded by beer cans. No, they didn't see any skeletons, bones, or dead bodies and no, there weren't any other guns around the truck. Even though we were dealing with Boy Scouts, the "scene of the find" was investigated and found to be as they had described.
After everyone calmed down a bit, I took the opportunity to praise the boys for their safe handling of the gun, and to mention that even though they had handled it properly it would have been better to leave it where it was and bring an adult to the gun instead of bringing the gun to the adults. I didn't come down on them too hard though, because they did handle it safely and they did bring it to the person in charge.
Several parents approached me afterwards to say "thank you" for the shooting experience and the safety lecture. Having the kids actually find a gun in the desert within an hour of the safety lecture really drove home the point to parents. Kids need to be taught how to handle guns safely.
I couldn't have scripted a better demonstration.
