Posted on 08/13/2006 11:40:10 AM PDT by Stoat
When 18-year-old Sara Garbarz walks into a shooting range, she often gets mistaken for a spectator. When she begins to load her 12-gauge shotgun, she is sometimes taunted by men who don't expect to see a woman with a firearm.
(Excerpt) Read more at redeye.chicagotribune.com ...
My first impression is that this is a line by a reporter who has never been to a shooting range, and wants to try to stir up something to show the sort of "caveman mentality" that leftists believe exists among conservatives, NRA members, shooters, etc...
Mark
Now there is an understatement.
The range I frequent is full of very bright and very nice guys and gals. I tend to go now ladies night which gives me a chance to try out new weapons for free but I was going there long before the program started and the guys (it was about 90% male at that time) were always nice.
Now days on a regular night it is about 25% female and on ladies night about 40% female.
First turkey hunt ever....and she is HOOKED..solid.
GREAT! :-) And she certainly isn't the only one. From the article:
"As more women compete in shooting sports, makers of guns and gun accessories are taking notice of the widening market. NRA spokeswoman Ashley Varner said recent years have brought an increase in firearms sized for women's smaller hands, more "fashionable" hunting gear and even purses specifically designed to hold a handgun. "Women & Guns" magazine covers everything from holiday gift giving to female Olympians who shoot. And just six years after its founding, the NRA's "Women's Outlook" magazine has approximately 50,000 subscribers."
Yes, that's what most of the posters here are focusing on. It was a huge mistake of mine to use the "auto-excerpt" posting function here, because it picked out the one stupid line that really isn't what the article is about. Hopefully people will click on the link and read the whole article.
I found this article because it was linked from the NRA site.
I agree with your assessment about the taunting. I go to the range frequently and have never seen any taunting or harassing of any kind. Everyone is very polite and serious about their gun handling. About 20 - 25% of the shooters are women and other customers and staff go out of their way to make them welcome.
>>Yes, that's what most of the posters here are focusing on. It was a huge mistake of mine to use the "auto-excerpt" posting function here, because it picked out the one stupid line that really isn't what the article is about.<<
I like the message board format for online communication but one irritant is when I mis-state something or make a typo or an excerpting error and then people make the same response to it all day...you have my sympathy.
I haven't seen any taunting. How about y'all?
Nope. If anything, guys fawn over chicks with guns.
This statement is most likely a flat out lie. I have never seen men taunt a woman on a firing range, at least not since the 1950s!
I haven't either1 I think it's great that more women are getting serious about gun ownership and I don't think most men are shallow enough to feel threatened by this.
ping
I used to take my daughter to the county range after she became old enough to be allowed to shoot there. No one taunted her as best I can remember, but even if they had I think the taunts would have stopped when they saw the tight little groups she could shoot offhand at 25 yards with her .38 revolver.
I started teaching her and her brother to shoot in a rural field near our home with a .22 revolver and a .22 rifle when she was about 10 years old and he was about 5 or 6. Later on she moved up to shooting my .45 revolver and a 20 gauge pump shotgun. Now she's 45 YO and can shoot better than me or her brother any day of the week with any type of firearm that any of us own. It's no big deal to shoot better than me and my 69 YO eyes, but there's nothing wrong with my son's eyesight and she can outshoot him as well.
Now I have a 9 YO grand-daughter who shoots a .22 pistol, and a 4 YO grand-son who can hardly wait to get started. My g-grandfather taught my grandfather to shoot with a muzzle loading rifle his father brought home from the War Between the States, he taught my father, my father taught me, and I taught my kids. Now it's their turn to teach and I'm loving watching them do it. I just wish I had the old muzzle loader to hang over the fireplace, but I guess it was turned into scrap iron many decades ago.
Please excuse my rambling on, that's just something us old proud grandpas are prone to do ya know.
Please excuse my rambling on, that's just something us old proud grandpas are prone to do ya know.
No need to apologize.
Pure pleasure to read.
Thanks for sharing.
Teach your kids to shoot bump!
Try having her take a half step forward with her left foot and lean into it a bit.
Also the left thumb over hand works ok with revolvers so they can single action it but if she forgets and uses a semi, it could cause a problem. The left thumb should be just below the cylinder and the right should be to the left of the hammer. There really shouldn't be a difference between the hold on a revolver and one on an semi. It eases the transition between the two.
I know a lot of shooters always say whatever works for them is ok but if they watch the top shooters in the country, they all seem to copy each other.
When I first took her to the range after our marriage, she got some odd looks. After a 25 M target full of head shots, she got a whole different set of looks : )
bump
Taunting? At the range? Never. Everyone there is always polite and courteous.
Now if you're talking about taunting online, that's a different story. Although most conservative men are intelligent and admire women with guns, there are a few serious jerks out there. I had an exchange with one right here on FR a few days ago, in fact.
Come and look! Bring your friends!
Over here.
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