Starting them young

[shugie]

Went to a snowy short siberia this morning for some New Year canned bang releasing, and took my 14 year old son to try prone shooting. He's joined our club as the youngest probationer (that I know of) and seemed to enjoy making holes with my T3. He ended up his third detail with a V bull, which pleased him no end. He joined me for some marking, and was quite surprised to see all the target gear at the butts, not what he was expecting having first seen it from the firing point.

I thought he'd get bored and lose interest, it was cold and he doesn't know the others to chat to them between details, but he's keen to go next time. As he's now taller than me, he can reach the top of the target more easily, so a very useful marker.

Some of the others have kids that will soon be 14, so I'm hoping he'll have some company soon.

I have warned him that not everyone likes the idea of guns, so he needs to keep schtum at school.

[safetyfirst]

Great to hear :) glad he enjoyed it.

If he's keen then it'll be hard to keep quiet at school but if you've got a good garden, an air rifle can be enough to get the time and training in, be something he can talk about openly and his mates can join in too without knowing you've got firearms in the house.

Hope you have many happy range seasons ahead of you!

[20series]

Great to hear he enjoyed it

Why should be hide what he does, the only way we can educate the great unthinking about the positives of the sport is by education. my youngest is 14 and I a full member of Our club and I told him that if people have issue with what he does he should explain it to them.

Your call obviously

Alan

[safetyfirst]

It's also important to think about home security 20Series, if you tell everyone at school you've got loads of cool guns at home, then there'll be loads of parents that also know, some of which you might not want knowing..... And given public attitude towards shooting, it might just cause more trouble than it's worth. Your kids environment at school is more important than flag waving. I do totally get where you're coming from though!

You can get people into shooting very safely and socially acceptably without getting them into firearms.

Show people how much fun and skill Guns offer and Their certificate application will come soon enough.

Plink plink.

[20series]

Ok valid point about security I was reading on the bus in this morning and hadn't woken up properly...

[safetyfirst]

Additional Tea 20Series :)

[froggy]

Excellent !! Very good news that there is a "next generation" !
I have warned him that not everyone likes the idea of guns, so he needs to keep schtum at school.
I took the other way and encouraged him to invite selected couple of my boy's English friends to my club's open day. The dads & a mum of course came along, they all "had a go" & all left, I hope & trust, with a more real & demystify idea of what we do.

[ovenpaa]

Bravo Shugie, my son is in his 30's now and we still meet up and shoot together from time to time, last meeting at the range was Christmas day.

[20series]

Additional Tea 20Series :)

Lol, I like your thinking the worrying bit is I drive 21 miles before I get on the bus into Cambridge... aaarggh

Back to OP. I love seeing youngsters enjoying shooting, I used to instruct/coach prone small-bore and getting them going and watching them improve gave me a big buzz, we only plink these days but the enjoyment is still there

Alan

[HH1]

I started pulling the trigger at around 2 years of age.... Dad would cock and hold one of his air rifles on the bench and I'd sit there and pull the trigger. Back then all the kids at school knew my dad had guns....(including "real" handguns", it wasn't a problem.... but times have certainly changed. It is a shame that we can no longer really promote shooting as an enjoyable sport.