Children are never to young to learn gun safety
I am a big fan of the .22 rimfire guns and ammunition because they are inexpensive to shoot and they are extremely accurate. The recoil is virtually nonexistent and the noise when fired is minimal.
All of these features are important to a beginner because they are not constantly being bombarded by disturbing recoil and ear splitting noise and if not held to a minimum those two items alone can turn off a new shooter quicker than almost anything I can bring to mind.
If a novice shooter finds that recoil or loud noise hurts, or scares them when they shoot, they are not likely to want to recreate that experience whether they hit anything or not.
There are other things that can tend to dampen the enthusiasm of young shooters beside recoil and noise.
My youngest grandson, Christian, has sensitive ears and loud noise hurts his ears. He will even come to my house when fireworks are going to be let off and borrow a pair of my shooting muffs - loud noise is important to him - so the first time he, his father and I went to the range we made sure he had well fitting ear muff type hearing protection, so he has never had a bad noise experience at the range.
Now he can go to the range and shoot along side of me with me shooting a .357 Magnum revolver or 45/70 Government rifle and it does not disturb him because his ears are and have always been well protected.
Christian and I were at the range on another occasion and we were shooting my .22 caliber semiautomatic rifle. At the ripe old age of nine years old he had chosen the honored career of a soldier in the Untied States Army as his future occupation.
Now you must visualize the shooting situation with him on the firing line complete in hearing and eye protection, the rifle resting on a Bulls Bag model V-7, shooting rest and he was separated from the shooter on each side by a carpeted covered wall that keeps hot brass from one station showering the shooter next to them.
Christian was shooting at the target when a hot shell case from the rifle he was shooting bounced off of the wall to his right and landed somehow on his right arm and found its way down his shirt sleeve. He did not panic be made sure the rifle was safe and shook his arm, ejecting the hot shell case from his sleeve. The hot shell case left a red burn mark on his arm so I dabbed a little aloe vera on it and that eased the burn.
After a little time had passed he asked why that happened and I told him it was one of the drawbacks of shooting a semiautomatic gun in close confinement like we were. After some thought he asked if they used semiautomatic rifles in the Army and my reply was affirmative. He then said, “I don’t want to be in the Army anymore.”
To this day when we go to the range he will still shoot the .22 semiautomatic rifle, but he wears something with long sleeves and tight cuff; he is still not interested in pursuing his career as a solider.
You never know what will turn off a young shooter so be attentive to the facial and body expressions of a new shooter as well as their verbal comments. If something causes them discomfort do not tell them to “not be a sissy”, but fix the problem.
All but one of my grandchildren is shooters and Megan –six years old - is just about big enough to get out this coming summer and learn her way around firearms. They all know the basic operation of rifles, shotguns, and revolvers and pistols because they have been taught. They know gun safety because they have been taught and every time they want to look at a gun I take out what they want to look at from my safe and we have a quick safety review.
Repetition is the key to learning anything and I am proud to say that my children and grandchildren all like to shoot and are safety conscious when it comes to what they are doing and what everyone else is doing who is around them.
Some of the best family times we have had have been around a shooting venue. Our family has gone on picnics in the afternoon that end in a dove hunt and even my wife enjoys those gatherings and she has never fired a gun, has no interest in ever shooting one, but enjoys seeing her family having fun.
My son and I paired up with his two sons in a rimfire league and we all had a great time and my son and I found that would had to get serious on the firing line if we did not want to get skunked by the kids. Not only did we have a good time competing and the fellowship with family and other shooters, but we all improved our shooting and the children were again reminded every week that the key to a good day shooting is based on safety first.
So folks if your child is big enough to fire a .22 rimfire rifle from a rest on a bench at the shooting range they are old enough to start having fun shooting and they are never too young to learn gun safety.
Photography by Larry J. LeBlanc
Photo number - P3230001B
Caption – My oldest grandson, Austin, learns that a .357 Magnum has more recoil than a .22 revolver, but is not disturbed because he was raised with them and never frightened by noise or recoil.