So I was spending some frustrating time trying to get used to the grip of a new gun and not progressing as well as I wanted, when I noticed that I was no longer alone at the Gretna Gun range. An older African-American man, maybe 65 or so walked in looking like the widest-eyed deer in the headlights I'd ever seen.
He was holding his pistol at a discomforting angle ( sweeping most of the room) and wasn't wearing his ear protection either, so I put my gun down and talked with him. Sure enough, he was a newbie and this was his first gun and first time at the range.
But no one had even taught him the basics.
Now, I'm not an instructor, but he was so helpless looking that I felt he needed a bit of instruction. I taught him the 4 rules of safe handling and then showed him how to work the lane. I had to hang his target for him because he was too short to reach it.
Then I had to shout at him to hold fire as I saw him about to pull the trigger with his thumb on the back end of the slide! Fortunately, he listened, and I explained that he was about to break his thumb the way he was holding the gun. I asked him how much training he had gotten when he purchased the gun: None. BTW he had not purchased it at Gretna Gun.
So I asked him to unload the gun, and we went through how to grip it properly, how to keep the finger safely off of the trigger until ready to fire, how to align the sights with the target, etc. Then I let him give it a go. He didn't do too badly for a first timer, but his stance was all wrong. The more he fired, the more he leaned backward and his hits crept upward. So I showed him a couple of shooting stances, and he seemed to like a modified Weaver the best, and then he reloaded - slowly because his thumbs were definitely not used to the work.
After he had used up his box of 50, he packed it in, and I told him to check with the guys at the front desk to see if he could find an instructor; he left with a smile at discovering how much fun target shooting could be, but with the idea that he needed a bit of work.
It never hurts to take a few moments to help out a newbie, if for no other reason than to keep from having them accidentally shoot you.
He was holding his pistol at a discomforting angle ( sweeping most of the room) and wasn't wearing his ear protection either, so I put my gun down and talked with him. Sure enough, he was a newbie and this was his first gun and first time at the range.
But no one had even taught him the basics.
Now, I'm not an instructor, but he was so helpless looking that I felt he needed a bit of instruction. I taught him the 4 rules of safe handling and then showed him how to work the lane. I had to hang his target for him because he was too short to reach it.
Then I had to shout at him to hold fire as I saw him about to pull the trigger with his thumb on the back end of the slide! Fortunately, he listened, and I explained that he was about to break his thumb the way he was holding the gun. I asked him how much training he had gotten when he purchased the gun: None. BTW he had not purchased it at Gretna Gun.
So I asked him to unload the gun, and we went through how to grip it properly, how to keep the finger safely off of the trigger until ready to fire, how to align the sights with the target, etc. Then I let him give it a go. He didn't do too badly for a first timer, but his stance was all wrong. The more he fired, the more he leaned backward and his hits crept upward. So I showed him a couple of shooting stances, and he seemed to like a modified Weaver the best, and then he reloaded - slowly because his thumbs were definitely not used to the work.
After he had used up his box of 50, he packed it in, and I told him to check with the guys at the front desk to see if he could find an instructor; he left with a smile at discovering how much fun target shooting could be, but with the idea that he needed a bit of work.
It never hurts to take a few moments to help out a newbie, if for no other reason than to keep from having them accidentally shoot you.
