Renee trying a .22 pistol with Jim, our weapons instructor, Bishop, California, August 2005. Glenn Reynolds, aren't you proud?!
Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC, and a member of the Hoover Task Force on National Security and Law, blogs on topics related to international laws of war, international law, related human rights topics, international NGOs, and the theory of the just war. (Mostly inactive these days, everything here is first draft and subject to changing my mind.)
8 comments:
Can't speak for Glenn, Dr. Anderson, but I'm certainly proud! I learned to shoot when I was nine years old. So far, I haven't killed anyone. Or even wounded them. But in some quarters, it is believed that it would be better for your daughter to be totally ignorant of how to use a gun than to know what guns are, how they work, and how to use them safely. These people are the ones you can never convince of the necessity and the morality of a just war.
I'm glad that you hired a professional instructor. I'm a member of the army and I think professional education and training should be made mandatory before one can own a gun.
I am teaching my daughters to shoot a .410 shotgun (hoping to move them up to 12 gauge eventually). I instructed all of them (14, 12 and 9), they don't date until they can hit a moving target. :-D
Anonymous, you're way off base, there.
Once you open that can of worms, you find suddenly that the definition of "professional" is tightened, until the shooting sports get choked off completely.
You don't need to be taught by a "professional" -- just by a keen shooter who knows the rules.
I've taught literally hundreds of people to shoot, and I'm not a "professional". But I have fired off more rounds than most of them.
My friend from Oregon just competed in the Idaho State Cowboy Action Shooting Championship with 2 of his 3 daughters. He (and they) did great.
Here's the link:
http://blogidaho.blogspot.com/2005/08/shooting-bulletts.html
Interesting how the instructor isn't wearing eye protection or hearing protection while his student is :)
Kim is right, the end result he describes is pretty much what we have here where everyone who wants to shoot a gun has to be a member of a gunclub AND a member of a national group (which is actually a government agency) and only after training and exams are you allowed to teach anyone.
Non-members are allowed to visit a range no more than 3 times a year and need to be registered each time.
To become a member a full police background check is mandatory and your membership is registered with the police (immediately branding you as a potentially armed criminal in case they ever need to go after you). When you then want to buy a weapon which isn't allowed until and unless you've been a member for over a year (or maybe more by now) another permit from the police is required for each weapon, detailing the type of weapon you can buy by brand and model. Until you've been a member for at least 5 years you are then not allowed to take that weapon home with you, and when you are you're given a single exactly described route you are allowed to drive.
Once you go regulating things like who can teach to shoot and who can own a gun (I DO agree with placing restrictions on people convicted of firearms related crimes but no more) that's the logical outcome.
What kind of pistol is your daughter shooting? I recently took my fiance out shooting for the first time and found my Browning Buckmark was really a bit to large for her hands.
To the Anon person who mentions the "professional" isn't wearing eye/ear protectiong, from the picture I cannot be sure if he is wearing eye protection or not, his head is turned away from the camera while wearing a ballcap, so he could be wearing shooting glasses. They don't have to be the bulky safty goggles a lot of people see. Also, as to the ear protection, he could be wearing ear plugs, which you couldn't tell from the picture as well. I happen to wear eye glasses when I go shooting and it's accepted as eye protection from the indoor range I go to. Also I tend to use ear plugs cause those headphones get in my way if I'm shooting a sub-rifle.
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