Armory Sponsor
Posted: 11/25/2009 1:52:24 AM EDT
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Last night my wife volunteered to watch her 2 nephews for a couple hours. The oldest one, 11 years old, has a huge interest in firearms and anything related. His parents, while not anti-gun, seem to have no interest either way (well, their Mom gets a little nervous but not bad).
Anyway I had decided to develop a new load for my .45acp a while back but hadn't gotten around to it (with a 3 year old and a 7 week old my free time has been severely limited) so I asked if he wanted to help. He jumped at the offer so down to the gun room we went. I've been reloading for many years but never taught anybody so it was kinda odd having to put into words and sentences the things that I'd been doing for so long but I think in the end I did OK. I figure it's good practice for me with my 3 year old as he gets older. My nephew loved it! He asked many questions throughout the process as he was thinking about and understanding not only what he was doing but, more importantly in my opinion, why he was doing it. We (he) loaded 50 rounds before his Mom came to pick him up and I asked him if this was something he'd like to continue as he got older and he said "heck yea this is fun!" It was a great bonding opportunity for us as our families don't have much contact throughout the year, I really enjoyed it, it felt good that I might have just brought another into the ranks of responsible firearm enthusiasts. I know this isn't a tech discussion so if it needs to be moved, please feel free 
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Bonding with kids at any age just pays dividends to everyone. My two oldest grandsons (10 & 12) are always ready to go shoot with Grand Dad and they do
great. Both love to shoot the ar's but that gets a little expensive so I bought them one of the Colt M4 in 22 LR. They can shoot all day for $15.00 |
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About 6 months ago, I took my 12 year old niece to the shooting range with me. It's a 2000 acre parcel of land. I showed her how to drive my manual shift Chevy pickumup truck. She never stalled it and drove me all over the range. Then we started picking up .223 brass. I explained to her that each piece of brass was like picking up a nickel. She really got into it then. When we got home I pulled out a Lee hand press with a universal decapper. I showed her how to decap and she did about 300 pieces.
Flash forward 6 months...she's 13 now. My niece was visiting for a couple of days. My girlfriend was working with her showing her how to embroider on her whiz-bang embroidery machine. My Dillon 650 is set up a few feet away from it so I decided to load a few rounds. As soon as my niece saw what I was doing, and recognized the .223 brass like she had picked up, she ran over and started watching me load ammo. She asked if she could do it. Well, I was about out of powder, so I told her she could next time. I also wanted to explain to her a little more about was all was going on before I let her load...and to emphasize the safety stuff. The point is, kids, both boys and girls, are interested in this stuff. Teaching them young will more likely result in responsible use of firearms and give them a great sense of pride, just like I have. Thanks for reading. jonblack |
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