Good day all. Back in March, I wrote about how the shooting sports are becoming very popular with Ivy League students. The fact that the most progressive of universities had people actually learning how to shoot surprised me.
Now the sport is moving into High Schools. More and more teenagers are learning firearms safety and handling, and are now entering into trap and skeet shooting competitions. Here are the details from Bloomberg:
The giddy 13-year-old boys oohed and aahed as they stared down the black shotgun barrels and aimed at clay targets they imagined whizzing through the air. “You guys are welcome to test any of these out,” said Dusty Minke, a sales agent for Browning, as the teens elbowed each other for spots at his kiosk. “We’ve actually had a couple of kids who did so good on the test range that they were like, ‘Can I use this for my rounds?’ We let ‘em, and their scores went up — and they’ll hopefully go and buy one.”
Well, it will be their parents who will buy them, at least until these teens reach the age of 18 and legal adulthood.
It was day six of the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League championship, the world’s biggest shooting-sport event. Minke could see potential customers in every direction, kids as young as 11 who’d tumbled out of their parents’ cars in camouflage T-shirts beginning at 7 a.m.
And I can now see many liberal heads going POP! at the thought of all those children being put in such a situation. To which I say:
“This is the best thing to happen to the shooting sports in 50 years,” said Dennis Knudson, a 74-year-old lifelong trap shooter, after watching his grandson compete. “It’s so fun to see the youngsters stepping up. It will preserve the sport, and they’ll do it for the rest of their lives.”
And spend a whole bunch of money too. Competition shotguns are not exactly cheap, and ammo for practice?
Therein lies the appeal for the industry. The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates the average 16-year-old competitor will spend $75,000 over his or her lifetime.
And that means jobs for firearms and ammunition manufacturers. I call that a win win situation.
Zac Olson, 15, used a SKB Century III 12-gauge as a member of the Lakeville South High School team, which he joined after an injury ended a budding gymnastics career. “All you need to do is practice,” he said, wearing the team’s black-and-khaki vest. “You don’t have to be super fast or super strong.”
Nope, all you need is a good eye. Hitting those things is not the easiest thing to do, and then there is the support of the parents.
His mother, Courtney Olson, went from being repulsed at the thought of guns in their house near Minneapolis to buying Zac the $1,400 shotgun and a $600 Glock 17 to nurture his new found interest in becoming a police officer. “To see your kid this happy is incredible,” she said.
And I suspect he will be one of those officers who can actually hit what’s shooting at, rather than the bad guy and 15 innocent bystanders. Another group happy to see this is the National Rifle Association.
For the National Rifle Association, which lobbies against firearm restrictions, youngsters like him represent an important new constituency. “These kids are going to be future legislators, and they’re going to get in there and know the truth about weapons,” said Dennis Taylor, an NRA member and an operations manager at the Wisconsin Trapshooting Association.
Of course, there is still the issue of the moonbats running the schools.
To wary educators, Sable stressed his motto — “Safety, fun and marksmanship, in that order” — and strict rules: no firearms allowed on campus. Team members must have state-issued safety certificates, which in Minnesota can be earned at age 11. The league record is clean, with no reported injuries.
No injuries? Why that must annoy the gun grabbers.
John Nelson, the league vice president, said that while some schools don’t permit yearbook photos of team members posing with firearms, there’s been no backlash. Gun-control advocates, in fact, haven’t opposed trap as a school sport. But they disagree with boosters’ contention that its spread will reduce accidents by teaching children how to safely handle the weapons, citing data showing gun-owning households are at higher risk of homicide and suicide by firearm.
Yeah, the moonbats can’t accept the fact that training children and teenagers that guns are not toys, but tools that must be respected works. It always has worked. The NRA’s Eddie Eagle Program is the best known program for teaching children not to play with guns, and has been very successful in reducing accidents among those who have taken the classes.
Hats off to these fine young people and to those who have encouraged them to get out of the house and have fun. Soon enough, you too will be heading off to the halls of Ivy and adding your skills to their shooting teams. And, in closing, here’s something you might want to try if the opportunity presents itself.
[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3npF3e2oZQ’]
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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