Studentofthegun
From the Land of White Pine and Moonshine
Staff member
2A Bourbon Hound OG
Charter Life Member
Benefactor
Supporting Member
Multi-Factor Enabled
Want to read something encouraging about the next generation of competitive shooters? This thread is for you.
Some weeks back I discovered the (redacted)
I went to one of their events and observed 35-40 students shooting guns (many for the first time) at the Wake Country range in Holly Springs. I’d brought some pistols for them to try out and provided some ammo. They seemed to enjoy shooting my race guns. I had a conversation with their leadership and they weren’t sure they would be able to have another range trip this semester due to lack of funding. When I heard that, I thought to myself “Not if I can help it”.
The intial plan was to take 5 at a time to my local range. Maybe come up with a sign up sheet or something to eventually get them all out there so they could at least get another trip in this semester. Even if it would be in a smaller group.
Now, while all this is going on I’m also talking to Parrish Ketchmark (most know him as Parry) who runs SFE Shooters. He’s roped me into running a 2 gun Rimfire match on a monthly basis at Freedom Gun Club. The subject of the (redacted) comes up. And that’s when Parry got involved.
SFE stands for Safe, Fun, Educational. Their mission is to get people interested in various competitions. Parry runs a ton of matches and keeps adding more. It’s mind boggling to me that he’s able to keep up with all that.
Parry proposed that we use Freedom Gun Club and have a special event that introduces the students to all sorts of different competitions. So we planned to have a 2 gun Rimfire stage, Heroes over Terrorists stage (USPSA lite sort of), IDPA, a shotgun stage, rifle stage, and a Steel Challenge stage. This gave those students a sampling of different kinds of matches ao they could see what they’re all about.
So we gather volunteers and plan this thing out. Parry, the saint that he is, provided the vast majority of ammo out of his own pocket. Many of the volunteers bring loaner guns. And Freedom Gun Club let us have the event there for free because they also believed in the mission.
Believe it or not, 30 shooters showed up (they carpooled to get there) and as far as I can tell they had a really great time. We gave away some cheesy prizes too. The results are on Practiscore and you can see that Parry made multiple matches for each type of competition. Search for (redacted) and you’ll see them from last Sunday.
@parrishbrian deserves a lot of credit for pulling this off. He put in the most effort and funds to make this happen. He also brought a number of volunteers. I brought a few of my buddies and feel they should get lots of credit for taking a Sunday to spend time with these young people.
@Chilly636
@NKD
@Average Joe
@Slacker
Chris Moore
Jennie Moore
Paul Hancock
Stan Lee
Anthony (Raj)
Evan Lee
Darren Kirts
And Parry you’ll have to help me out on the rest. I definitely don’t want to leave anyone out. I also wasn’t sure about how to give credit to the owners of Freedom Gun Club by name.
Best news of all? I’ve already been contacted by a couple of students who want to sign up for future matches.
Folks can yell at the television. Wrote letters to elected officials. They can put a bumper sticker on their car. But the best way to encourage people and educate them about the shooting sports is to simply interact with them. And I don’t mean on Facebook. Sure, there’s a cost associated with it but I assure you it’s worth it.
I have to say I was very impressed with these students. They were polite, positive, asked questions, and were grateful for our efforts. And let me tell you, some of them might be new to firearms but we discovered some natural talent. It was quite impressive.
Take a kid to the range. I promise you’ll get as much out of it as they will.
Edit:
Pictures redacted.
(Some schools have been suspending students who have posted pictures of them at the range. As such, I’ve taken the precaution of removing the photos from public view. The name of the student organization has also been redacted)
Some weeks back I discovered the (redacted)
I went to one of their events and observed 35-40 students shooting guns (many for the first time) at the Wake Country range in Holly Springs. I’d brought some pistols for them to try out and provided some ammo. They seemed to enjoy shooting my race guns. I had a conversation with their leadership and they weren’t sure they would be able to have another range trip this semester due to lack of funding. When I heard that, I thought to myself “Not if I can help it”.
The intial plan was to take 5 at a time to my local range. Maybe come up with a sign up sheet or something to eventually get them all out there so they could at least get another trip in this semester. Even if it would be in a smaller group.
Now, while all this is going on I’m also talking to Parrish Ketchmark (most know him as Parry) who runs SFE Shooters. He’s roped me into running a 2 gun Rimfire match on a monthly basis at Freedom Gun Club. The subject of the (redacted) comes up. And that’s when Parry got involved.
SFE stands for Safe, Fun, Educational. Their mission is to get people interested in various competitions. Parry runs a ton of matches and keeps adding more. It’s mind boggling to me that he’s able to keep up with all that.
Parry proposed that we use Freedom Gun Club and have a special event that introduces the students to all sorts of different competitions. So we planned to have a 2 gun Rimfire stage, Heroes over Terrorists stage (USPSA lite sort of), IDPA, a shotgun stage, rifle stage, and a Steel Challenge stage. This gave those students a sampling of different kinds of matches ao they could see what they’re all about.
So we gather volunteers and plan this thing out. Parry, the saint that he is, provided the vast majority of ammo out of his own pocket. Many of the volunteers bring loaner guns. And Freedom Gun Club let us have the event there for free because they also believed in the mission.
Believe it or not, 30 shooters showed up (they carpooled to get there) and as far as I can tell they had a really great time. We gave away some cheesy prizes too. The results are on Practiscore and you can see that Parry made multiple matches for each type of competition. Search for (redacted) and you’ll see them from last Sunday.
@parrishbrian deserves a lot of credit for pulling this off. He put in the most effort and funds to make this happen. He also brought a number of volunteers. I brought a few of my buddies and feel they should get lots of credit for taking a Sunday to spend time with these young people.
@Chilly636
@NKD
@Average Joe
@Slacker
Chris Moore
Jennie Moore
Paul Hancock
Stan Lee
Anthony (Raj)
Evan Lee
Darren Kirts
And Parry you’ll have to help me out on the rest. I definitely don’t want to leave anyone out. I also wasn’t sure about how to give credit to the owners of Freedom Gun Club by name.
Best news of all? I’ve already been contacted by a couple of students who want to sign up for future matches.
Folks can yell at the television. Wrote letters to elected officials. They can put a bumper sticker on their car. But the best way to encourage people and educate them about the shooting sports is to simply interact with them. And I don’t mean on Facebook. Sure, there’s a cost associated with it but I assure you it’s worth it.
I have to say I was very impressed with these students. They were polite, positive, asked questions, and were grateful for our efforts. And let me tell you, some of them might be new to firearms but we discovered some natural talent. It was quite impressive.
Take a kid to the range. I promise you’ll get as much out of it as they will.
Edit:
Pictures redacted.
(Some schools have been suspending students who have posted pictures of them at the range. As such, I’ve taken the precaution of removing the photos from public view. The name of the student organization has also been redacted)