TargetTalk

A 22LR is not a gun, they should be thought of as a condiment, in that they serve to increase the pleasure of life. Likewise they should never be counted in among the number of guns that you confess to having. They should be handed out as wedding and graduation presents to those poor souls who did not get one when they turned 10 or 12 (or even younger if you happen to find a very nice one for your 5 year old).

The second gun my daughter got was a S&W Model 651, 4 inch .22 J frame, .22 Mag. I sent it back to S&W for a matching .22 LR cylinder (very limited cost). Maybe one day a little engraving will be in order.

That's her gun and what she takes to the range (when she's not riding horses and competing). From her comments, she is the envy of every boy in her middle school.

(The first was a beautiful little Merkel 28 that was a birthing present which she hasn't quite grown into yet)

Yes, everyone should have a .22, just because.

Cecil

pilkguns wrote:A 22LR is not a gun

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Always comes down to size^H^H^H^Hcalibre, doesn't it? :D

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Russ wrote:
Numbers vary, but let's go with the low side of 60 million gun owners in the US and we can't get shooting medals so far. Let's fix that."

Amen. A big problem we face is that our new shooters grow up in a country where the dolts who "educate" them revile guns.

In the areas of this country where guns are a normal part of life, in the main, dads train their children in hunting and not precise one-handed target shooting. Unfortunately for us, lots of shooting dads don't find .22s as sexy as a double-stack mag of .40 S&W or an over-under 12 ga. The U.S. does not lack for top-rank shotgun shooters, of all ages, because that's what dad teaches the kids.

50m Free Pistol just isn't too common, down Alabama way, and it should be, since the shooting sports enjoy great parental support down there, and we run into very little cultural friction in advancing the idea that shooting could be among the high school sports.

I would love to see shooting become a common high school sport. When I went to high school, they would have died at the thought of shooting earning a letter. This needs to change. Obviously, I favor school vouchers.

Russ wrote: Numbers vary, but let's go with the low side of 60 million gun owners in the US and we can't get shooting medals so far. Let's fix that."

Hi

The freedom that allows us to own and shoot these very guns is the freedom that "allows us" to NOT shoot International / Olympic style sports. In China, the former Soviet Union, and I would guess a few other countries you are told what you are shooting if you show aptitude. From my understanding, you were also told what other sports you would be playing. Here in the US, you can have the world's best eyesight, hand to eye coordination, and an extremely low pulse rate but we can't MAKE you shoot.

We have to want to win the Olympics, a lot of people here want to win Camp Perry and couldn't care less about the Olympics. There are especially a lot of comments against the Olympics on the National Highpower website.

Mike
Wichita KS

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Hi

As I understand the old Soviet way, and the current Chinese way, YOU don't decide to shoot 3-position Smallbore at the Olympics, your school's athletic director decides that you have the genitics to shoot 3-position smallbore at the Olympics, therefore YOUR job is to shoot 3-position smallbore at the Olympics. PERIOD. No longer TRUE in Russia, definitely not TRUE here.

My point is that while we have hundreds of kids with the ability to learn to shoot, they CHOOSE not to. Even those who do CHOOSE to shoot, shoot what they want to shoot. Most Americans shoot what is available, what Dad shoots, or what their friends shoot. I know one person who shoots International Trap at Ark Valley Skeet club (he bought his own Trap). I don't know anyone else who shoots international type competitions. I know hundreds of shooters too.

Hope that's more clearly stated.

Mike

There are surely arguments for the sheer pleasure of shooting...in whatever discipline you choose. This can be on a national level (e.g. Camp Perry) or international.....largely tagged as "Olympic-style". However they get to it, an awful lot of the rest of the world competes in disciplines somewhat different from the mainstream here (USA). That doesn't make them lesser activities. In almost every area of life, the global community shares and competes in increasingly greater familiarity. We are entitled to be proud citizens and tout our expertise, but we must compete and participate in the economy, culture, AND shooting with the recognition of a level field where all encounter the same challenges. We can compete with anyone.....but we are fools if we think everyone will choose to do only what we do. If we want a spotlight on the world stage, then we must read from the same script. IMHO. Personally, ISSF is the style of shooting most pleasurable to me. CraigE