Teaching the Boy to Shoot
Like most young boys, my six-year old has developed a fascination with guns. It occurred to me that it might be best if he understood how to safely handle a gun rather than guns being a complete mystery to him. A while back, I told him that I would bring my .22 rifle when we went to my in-law’s farm at Christmas.
I showed it to him for the first time a few days ago, and all he has talked about since then is guns. He has told everyone he’s seen that he was going to shoot daddy’s gun at the farm. It’s been pretty comical actually… He’s been asking all kinds of questions about rifles, handguns, machine guns - even cannons!
So today we went out to the farm and shot up some cans and water bottles. We went through about 25o rounds between my .22 semi-auto rifle, my brother-in-law’s .22 semi-auto pistol that he loaned me, my father-in-law’s .22 revolver, and his .357 revolver.
I taught Jett to shoot the .22 rifle and pistol. He had a blast and we had a great time bonding. (I had fun too…) At the end, he actually hit some cans at about 40~50 feet!
Interestingly, I think Jett is the fifth-generation to shoot the .22 rifle. My grandfather originally bought it for my great-grandmother so she could shoot squirrels from her porch. Apparently, she like to eat squirrel… Now I’m not actually certain the my dad has shot it but I’m pretty sure that he had the opportunity when I was a kid.
I offered to teach Jada too, but she didn’t want anything to do with the guns. Maybe another day…
That sounds like fun. My youngest daughter was the same way and now she goes hunting with me on occasion. She’s petty good shooting skeet. My oldest doesn’t have any interest at all.
We got the opportunity to go back out to the farm last Friday. Jada got a chance to shoot. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law’s .22 kept jamming because it wasn’t oiled and it limited the shooting.