Sitting at lunch yesterday with my best friend and my two girls, my newly turned 6 y/o daughter (birthday was Friday) announced that she was ready to go shooting. Well alright, that was unexpected. After lunch we loaded up and headed to the range. In the car on the way out we had a discussion about safety, how we act at the range, and the implications therein. She’s been learning about gun safety for years at home, even using Nerf guns as examples in anticipation of this eventuality, just wasn’t sure when it would come. For as goofy as she can act at times she can also be very serious and focused. Once there she remembered everything we’d talked about regarding where to stand, how to act, and the need for eye/ear protection.
We setup on the steel range with the expectation of shooting some .22 rifle and possibly .22 pistol. However, I soon realized that my choice of rifle wasn’t a great one. I’d brought my 522 with illuminated scope thinking the red dot would be easy to aim/focus on. However, due to LOP she couldn’t get a good check weld and had a hard time looking through the scope. Lesson for next time, bring a rifle with a red dot and bigger field of view. I have an SBR'd 15-22 that will probably go with us next time. I like the idea of the red dot for initial use just so that she can focus on that vs. trying to line up sights. Hopefully allowing for more focus on the safety rules. Once she has those down I'll swap her to a more traditional sight picture.
In light of that we swapped over to the S&W M&Pc 22 with a SilencerCo Micro Osprey on the end. We talked about hold to hold it, how to use the sights to aim, and where to put your trigger finger when not firing (she picked this up right away and afterwards would always go to the safety spot). After I was satisfied that she had the manipulation of the pistol down I loaded the mag with a single round of CCI SV. As seen in the picture below I got behind her and helped her steady the pistol/can on a rest so she could focus on aiming and pulling the trigger. Once she pulled the trigger for the first time I could tell she was hooked. We shot single shots for the first 8-10 rounds. Once she was comfortable and I’d watched her handle the gun for a while we started loading up 2-3 rounds. Never once did she try to point the gun anywhere but down range, and when she stopped shooting mid-mag she very carefully placed the gun on the bench (finger still on the safety spot). In total she probably shot about 30 rounds (hitting steel with about 7 of those).
In the end an unexpected comment lead to one of the proudest days in my “dad” life up to this point. She’s already asked (multiple times) when we’re going to go shooting again. She continues to remind me that next time we need to take “her” rifle, a single shot Winchester Model 67 that I bought several years ago with the thought that I’d use it to teach the kids as they showed interest. Mom is now worried about the monster that’s been created. Me, I just sit there and smile…
Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
Complacency sucks… 
