Well a friend of mine, to whom I sold a .22 rifle, wants to go shooting this sunday. He wants to take his two kids, ages 7 and 12. Acompanying us will be two other adults, one a student and another a staff member where I work.

I was thinking of taking my AR15, M1 Carbine, Ruger 10/22 and my Winchester 30-30. I am a little conerned about the two kids comming along, but we'll have to be extra careful with them.

Anyone here ever taken kids to the range and can give me some advice on how to best teach them gun safety and other pointers you can give would be appreciated.

I made it clear to all that they'll need eye and hearing protection.

thanks

PRINT out Coopers 4 rules of gun safety:


www.tincher.to/flyer.pdf

Quoted: Anyone here ever taken kids to the range and can give me some advice on how to best teach them gun safety and other pointers you can give would be appreciated. I made it clear to all that they'll need eye and hearing protection. thanks

We did this with some people at the university that "thought guns were bad."

Took them to the range, and might as well been 5 year olds.

We sat them down for about an hour going over the rules of firearms, what the different firearms were, what they do, etc.

I learned a few things.  They should be pretty receptive about guns.  Teach them safety first.  Teach them something about the gun so they can be connected to it, then let them have some fun.

Definitely take time to explain and reinforce the basic safety rules.

Even better in a crowd of novices - after the basic safety - give a demonstration of each weapon you've brought, explaining its action, proper operation, safeties and cautions. Fire it yourself, then walk each person through firing a string through it. Only after you've made sure each newb has adequately operated the weapon, should you take your eyes off them with it.

Even better / safer idea is keeping at least a ration of one experienced shooter to two hot weapons / newb shooters, AFTER the basic instruction is completed. A larger number of people to keep an eye one, or allowing one novice to shoot while another consumes all your time and attention is a recipe for disaster.

It's a potentially lethal situation. Have fun, but keep this in mind at all times.

Don't take your eyes off the kids.  Everytime they touch a gun help them with it.  Explain the gun and its parts.   It usually is fun letting the kids shoot and seeing them shoot for the first time.  Have fun and post pics. if you get any.

I've seen videos of kids shooting AR15's, but I don't know about that. Do you think a 12 year old can handle the recoil, albeit light, of the AR15? Definitely the kids won't be shooting he winchester. Nor probably the M1 carbine.

Since they will all be novices I ruled out any handguns.

Quoted: ... I made it clear to all that they'll need eye and hearing protection....

It's always a good idea to bring along extra eyes and ears (and drinking water) when shooting with newbies.  They don't understand the importance of these things until they get some trigger time.