Shootin.


As in, the South East Coast Editor went a shooting.

Going to the shooting range today....some thoughts about why Americans have and buy guns.

I grew up in a family that used guns for sport – competitive shooting and hunting. When I was about seven, I started spending summers with my grandfather and when we went to the range 2-3 times a week, it was from 8:00 till 5:00…..all day. We built up our own target backboards from 5ft x 5ft cardboard so we had many, many bulls and 1 inch center boxes to help us make one inch ten shot groups at 100 yards. My grandfather reloaded, making the practice rounds for range shooting out of lead, yes solid lead melted and poured into molds. A day at the range included eight or ten rifles, a couple of 5×5 target boards and hundreds of rounds fired, all bench rest, all day. (smile)

When I read articles about people crowding the gun stores, it is obvious to me that there are two very different motives. I never shot, reloaded or went to the range for personal protection reasons, I always was thinking of that big eight point buck in November after sitting in a blind out in the woods.

The fabric of our nation has always included guns and at first it was for protection against enemies. After the civil war and WW 1, civilians owning guns, at least in my family, was good clean fun and something that was fashinable to be very, very good at. Some families had boats, we had guns and shot on competitive teams at Camp Perry, Ohio.

Today, the bad guys are no more present than they’ve been in the last 100 years. The mood has changed about them however and I’ll be the first to say, with very high confidence, that if one of them comes within a hundred yards of me or my family, I’ll use deadly force and the bad guy with criminal intent will get the worst of it.

I am no more afraid of the bad guys (criminals, psychotics, terrorists, druggies) than I have been all my life and I’m damn glad I have guns and know how to use them. I am not in panic buying mode as described in the articles. New gun owners ought to take the time to gain confidence in their skills, learn gun safety and for god’s sake, figure out why they want to carry a concealed weapon and be sure of their intentions with deep conviction, not just because it’s fashionable or they saw it on some reality TV show.