I have two daughters in their twenties, and I have introduced young friends of theirs to shooting several times, but none was quite so pleasurable and satisfying as my experience this weekend.
My oldest daughter studied in Europe for two semesters on her way to a degree in international business. On one of those trips, she became close friends with a young lady from Belgium; they went sightseeing together, traveled together on school breaks, and stayed in close touch since. She invited my daughter to spend several days with her family in Belgium on the way home to the states, and is now a little more than halfway through a two-month stay with my daughter and her husband. They live only about ten minutes away, so we have seen quite a bit of her. She is very bright and inquisitive, speaks three languages fluently, is conversant on nearly any subject and always willing to learn - in short, thoroughly charming. Whenever we say, "We are doing X, do you want to come?" her answer is invariably "Sure, I will try it."
We went out to dinner with them on Friday evening, and on the way out I mentioned that my wife and I were going shooting on Saturday morning, and asked if she would like to join us. Her reply was the now-familiar positive, delivered with an equally familiar big smile.
She came to our house in the morning and I gave her a lesson on firearm safety, showed her the features and workings of the four pistols that we were taking to the range, and let her handle them, feel how the safeties and triggers worked, and such. I taught her the basics about grip, sight alignment, and trigger control, and ended by telling her that the highest priority was to remain safe, and after that to have fun. If she hit anything it would be a bonus.
When we got to the range, I started her with my Beretta Neos and a target maybe 8 feet away. She kept 10 rounds in the 9 ring, with 6 of them in the 10 ring and one touching, so we moved the target back. At 20 feet her groups opened up a little, but then started tightening up to 2.5 to 3 inches, so we moved the target back to about 30 feet and she tightened her groups back up and ended up putting most of her rounds in the 9 ring with just the occasional flyer.
She wanted to try a 9 mm, so I let her try the 92FS next, knowing that it was another easy shooter. I reminded her that she was going to hear a bigger boom and experience more recoil, but that it was going to be manageable and safe. I fired one round so that she would have an idea of what it would sound like, then stood close by while she fired the first round single action. Her eyebrows went up and she looked at me with a big grin. She made an affirmative comment about the noise and recoil and then went back to successful shooting, with tight groups and an occasional flyer. She went on to have equally good results with my Glock 26 and my wifes Sig P238. When she had tried them all out and I asked her what she wanted to shoot some more, she went back to the .22 and ran the targets out to 30 feet. By the end of the session, she was actually diagnosing her own errors in grip and sight alignment.
She hung out with my wife and me the rest of the day, helped clean the pistols, watched college football, went to a local craft show and had a light dinner there. During the afternoon we had a long conversation about the historical and social reasons that firearms and self defense were more accepted in the US than in many European countries, and she understood and acknowledged my points. She also mentioned several times during the day how much she had enjoyed shooting. At the end of the day, she thanked us generously once again for taking her shooting and giving her yet another new and enjoyable experience.
It is probably plain that my wife and I have grown to feel quite a bit of affection for this young lady. She is very open minded and very teachable. I was really proud of her for being willing to go shooting at all with her background, and then to do so well, too. It could hardly have gone better, and I thought ya'll might enjoy reading about it.
My oldest daughter studied in Europe for two semesters on her way to a degree in international business. On one of those trips, she became close friends with a young lady from Belgium; they went sightseeing together, traveled together on school breaks, and stayed in close touch since. She invited my daughter to spend several days with her family in Belgium on the way home to the states, and is now a little more than halfway through a two-month stay with my daughter and her husband. They live only about ten minutes away, so we have seen quite a bit of her. She is very bright and inquisitive, speaks three languages fluently, is conversant on nearly any subject and always willing to learn - in short, thoroughly charming. Whenever we say, "We are doing X, do you want to come?" her answer is invariably "Sure, I will try it."
We went out to dinner with them on Friday evening, and on the way out I mentioned that my wife and I were going shooting on Saturday morning, and asked if she would like to join us. Her reply was the now-familiar positive, delivered with an equally familiar big smile.
She came to our house in the morning and I gave her a lesson on firearm safety, showed her the features and workings of the four pistols that we were taking to the range, and let her handle them, feel how the safeties and triggers worked, and such. I taught her the basics about grip, sight alignment, and trigger control, and ended by telling her that the highest priority was to remain safe, and after that to have fun. If she hit anything it would be a bonus.
When we got to the range, I started her with my Beretta Neos and a target maybe 8 feet away. She kept 10 rounds in the 9 ring, with 6 of them in the 10 ring and one touching, so we moved the target back. At 20 feet her groups opened up a little, but then started tightening up to 2.5 to 3 inches, so we moved the target back to about 30 feet and she tightened her groups back up and ended up putting most of her rounds in the 9 ring with just the occasional flyer.
She wanted to try a 9 mm, so I let her try the 92FS next, knowing that it was another easy shooter. I reminded her that she was going to hear a bigger boom and experience more recoil, but that it was going to be manageable and safe. I fired one round so that she would have an idea of what it would sound like, then stood close by while she fired the first round single action. Her eyebrows went up and she looked at me with a big grin. She made an affirmative comment about the noise and recoil and then went back to successful shooting, with tight groups and an occasional flyer. She went on to have equally good results with my Glock 26 and my wifes Sig P238. When she had tried them all out and I asked her what she wanted to shoot some more, she went back to the .22 and ran the targets out to 30 feet. By the end of the session, she was actually diagnosing her own errors in grip and sight alignment.
She hung out with my wife and me the rest of the day, helped clean the pistols, watched college football, went to a local craft show and had a light dinner there. During the afternoon we had a long conversation about the historical and social reasons that firearms and self defense were more accepted in the US than in many European countries, and she understood and acknowledged my points. She also mentioned several times during the day how much she had enjoyed shooting. At the end of the day, she thanked us generously once again for taking her shooting and giving her yet another new and enjoyable experience.
It is probably plain that my wife and I have grown to feel quite a bit of affection for this young lady. She is very open minded and very teachable. I was really proud of her for being willing to go shooting at all with her background, and then to do so well, too. It could hardly have gone better, and I thought ya'll might enjoy reading about it.