This Buzzfeed video isn’t new, but it’s new to me. And no matter how old, the message still holds.
The clickbait hounds did a story on what happened when they took five self-described anti-gun liberals shooting guns for the very first time. Some of the participants’ comments will make you LOL. But their expressions and body language speak volumes in a common language I’ve seen hundreds of times as a firearm instructor.
The three and a half-minute video started out hard-core gun haters sharing their dislike of something they knew little about. “I don’t think there’s any reason to have guns in America,” said the first woman. “There should definitely be harsher gun control.” “Definitely,” said another.
And the male, wearing a “Winnebago Man” t-shirt, said, “It’s a national embarrassment at how many people are killed by gun violence.”
As a guy from the LA Gun Club explains how the gun works, the looks on the faces of three of the woman are priceless. Especially the blonde on the right.
Then they headed into the range and fire their first shots. The video (and whoever edited it) did a nice job of showing their excitement after shooting for the first time.
Yeah, I’ve seen that exact expression thousands of times from people shooting for the first time. Kids or adults…it’s the same thing. Especially when they shoot more guns than they thought possible and do well doing it.
The blonde who looked so terrified before they started shooting had this to say afterwards: “Just firing it once took a lot out of me. I was like, I fired once and then I wanted to take a nap.”
Maybe she needs to get into better shape. Here’s another first-timer after her first shots from the video:
You don’t see smiles like that at Moms Demand Action events. This woman, with that big smile, described how her heart raced so fast with excitement and exhilaration. Again, you don’t get that kind of reaction at a Giffords gun control rally.
But you see it all the time at NRA Youth Shooting Camps (2019’s camp | 2018’s camp 1 2 | 2017’s camp 1 2).
Even Winnebago Man had a good time pulling a trigger.
After they finished their shooting, the African-American woman said she “was getting sickened about feeling enjoyable about it.”
“Not every fun thing is legal,” another said.
Obviously none of them suffered a sudden change in their deeply held prejudices against civilian gun ownership, but the experience certainly planted a few freedom seeds in their minds. Seeds that might sprout someday to bring them around to embracing gun ownership…and maybe even gun rights.
Planting those seeds is the big reason we should all take at least a couple of non-gun owners out to fire their first shots each and every year. Tomorrow is the last day of National Shooting Sports Month, so there’s still some time to get a newb behind a gun. And even if you missed this month, there are plenty of good months left in 2019.
Young, old, it doesn’t matter. Plant those seeds and let them sprout on their own in due time.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get the satisfaction of seeing a look like this on their faces. And that smell when you shoot? Or from a freshly-fired cartridge case? That’s the smell of freedom.
Good little Leftards complete with their pajama boy or girl glasses,unfortunately they are brain damaged by copious amounts of the Leftard Kool Aid.
These are the Superior Intellects that I’ve been hearing about?
Antifa had better get better recruits.
Antifa has adequate “troops”. It we conservatives who need better troops, better able to defend themselves when they are attacked by those antifa cretins, so the conservatives won’t wind up in the hospital.
Jail is where you end up when you defend yourself from antifa.
There are conservatives who do fight them. But they are branded in the media as white supramacists/alt right ect…
Oh well, seig heil then I guess.
You can literately see their brains attempting to work out reality versus their leftist brain washing.
It would be nice if they can at least begin to understand how someone might like shooting even if they still think the less ‘fun’ aspects of gun ownership- carrying for self-defense, for example- should be verboten.
Antifa sucks,,, I have to live with their crap everyday because the mayor & governor are scared of them.
Portland, Oregon?
I don’t think it’s so much the quality of antifa’s Members (most of them are the definition of soy Boys with twiggy arms and dumpy white girls with softball bodies), so much as it is quality. They relie primarily on quantity, surrounding and attacking those who can’t or won’t fight back.
The term liberal has been so perverted. These people are authoritarian leftists, not liberals. They want to place significant amounts of government controls over people that do or say things they don’t like. They also probably think the laws they help to get passed against the “others” will never be applied to them, until it is. Then they cry about it on twitter, but it is too late. The law is there and it will never be repealed. The courts will not help them.
“The term liberal has been so perverted. These people are authoritarian leftists, not liberals. They want to place significant amounts of government controls over people that do or say things they don’t like. They also probably think the laws they help to get passed against the “others” will never be applied to them, until it is. Then they cry about it on twitter, but it is too late. The law is there and it will never be repealed. The courts will not help them.”
You nailed it, good sir. In certain circles, I’m a right wing bigot and in others I’m a leftist crazy. My stance is always based on the “your right to swing your arm ends at my nose” mentality. The scariest thing is that we will eventually create a weapon that will be wielded by a heretofore undisclosed monster with the willingness and impetuous to do great evil legally.
Ill say youre right.
I’m liberal, and say there’s nothing ‘liberal’ about the authoritarian radical leftist shitheads that call themselves liberal.
I invite folks to shoot as often as I can. My Smith .22 AR does wonders! Put a scary black rifle in people’s hands and let them open up. It’s liberating and eye opening like nothing else. I bring as many to the dark side as possible.
Taking people to learn how to safely shoot is one of the best things we can do to further our cause. Keep up the good work.
Saw that. Back in my youth (60+years ago), people (men, women, boys and girls) took shooting seriously. It wasn’t a “fun game”. You learned to shoot for food, defense, etc. You didn’t do it just to be burning ammo; you practiced to improve your skills. Presenting this as if it were some stupid play toy is doing a disservice to the shooters.
I’m not impressed by grins or “racing hearts”. I”m impressed by skilled and efficient gun handling and accuracy, which was obviously not the intent of the ‘trainer’, or whoever set this charade up.
WADR Gunny, shooting is fun. And if we don’t get young people involved in our sport/lifestyle, there won’t be any one to get more serious about the truly practical/political side of gun ownership. Start with the fun and responsibility of target shooting and go from there.
Perhaps for you and many others it’s fun/sport/lifestyle. To me it’s simply a means to an end. A way to accomplish a task; often a messy and laborious task. Sometimes a task I’d rather not have had to do.
Did you shoot up hill? Both ways? In the snow? With only irons? Was someone on your lawn?
Good on you for doing what you needed to, but your attitude isn’t helping. Realizing the seriousness and the responsibility of the firearms is important but holy krap. It’s ok to enjoy shooting because it’s fun.
Jack says: “Did you shoot up hill? Both ways? In the snow? With only irons? Was someone on your lawn?”
Are you being intentionally obtuse? Some people have different experiences than you have had Jack.
GunnyGene is a Marine veteran who has seen the reality of combat. It is not fun. The few that may laugh during combat are probably mentally warped. To the combat veteran shooting is something that is necessary. Efficiency and accuracy is not for pleasure they are necessary skills.
Semper Fi Gunny !
You didn’t see grins or racing hearts in the little kids shooting for the first time? WTF were you, Soviet Russia, shooting wolves over the snow using the family donkey for bait?
These adults never got to experience that sort of ‘power’ –and then the restraint & responsibility that comes from wielding it responsibly– as kids or any point prior. It’s like driving a car for the first time; you aren’t sure you can do something simply because your brain is so fixated on the consequences of what happens if you screw it up, that you forget how simple it is & that you are fully competent to handle it. Dread, excitement, then satisfaction or even pride. That last one especially, pride; something that far too many adults have never felt at any point in their life in regards to their own accomplishments, or have actively tried to repress out of misplaced shame.
Close, but no cigar. I started shooting in Alaska, and the mountains of Western Washington, back around 1949/’50. Any other questions?
You’re old.
They’re not (in the video).
Your replies make sense, Fudd.
Gunny actually built the mountains then learned to shoot in them. In fact, he was born in a log cabin he built with his own two hands.
I’m assuming you no longer have to shoot as a matter of survival having made it this far. Considering your distaste and lack of joy in doing it, why are you even reading this blog?
I learned to shoot 50+ years ago. I’m glad my father didn’t instill a sense of drudgery into it or I would have never picked up a gun again.
So, GunnyGene, you’re arguing for increasing gun control as guns become less necessary to everyday life? If you say that guns are only for utility, and not a valid pastime, then that is exactly what you are saying; people shouldn’t have them except when and where they actually need them. That might leave room for defensive carry (which generally is concealed carry), but it will slowly eliminate hunting (since fewer and fewer people actually need that to feed themselves). It will also lead to laws that outlaw carrying long guns outside the house; after all, the only circumstances you need such a thing is if you are fighting an enemy, foreign or domestic; in the former the Feds can simply use martial law to lift the restriction and in the latter case clearly the individual is disregarding the government’s opinion.
You may not be a total Fudd, but you’re as close as it gets; you think that only the way to use guns correctly is exactly the way you do. Having fun? Not allowed.
Great article.
I might have started them on something with less recoil, maybe an AR15.
At least one seems to have changed their mind.
I’m willing to bet that on the cutting room floor, is footage of the Soy Boi firing that pink AR 15 shown briefly in the beginning.
I go even lighter than that with trainees. I start them out with a Mossberg 702 Plinkster .22lr for rifles, and 6″ Beretta Neo fir handguns, also in 22lr.
I don’t disagree that the AR-15 is light, I just prefer to start out even lighter. Plus, I’ve fiund it can be helpful to isolate the newbie from as much controversy and preconceptions as possible. AR and 12 ga. shotguns can carry a lot of baggage in the minds of the uninitiated. I try to avoid those distractions in a first outing.
Now, next we take them to a Force Options training simulator, and show the sheep how wolves behave in the real world.
Or just have them mugged and ask if they would prefer to have had a gun.
I try to make a point to take a new, non-shooter at least once a year. I have never, ever had anyone who did not enjoy it. This is one small way to educate people.
Sounds like we need to have big push to get more people to try firearms. Bring a friend to the range day, free first time gun range rental, Try before you buy, family range day, 2 for 1 for first timers, etc.
Maybe National firearms organization can create programs for making first time shooters experience fun.
Really would love to see a big expansion in people enjoying the sport, not afraid, and not advocating to take mine away.
@ Reply says:
August 30, 2019 at 17:20
Yes, I am. And I didn’t get old by being stupid. As for that FUDD label, you don’t know me or what I have done in my life. But if it makes you giggle, knock yerself out.
You got old due to modern advancements in medicine and industry. If you actually think that you had anything to do with your longevity, the only fool here is you. Good luck with your log cabin.
No need to be an asshole. We keep up this idiotic infighting, the left will win. Gunny’s not the enemy. Your (and many like you) attitude is. Maybe one day you’ll be lucky enough to be “old”. Bet you won’t be so impressed with yourself then.
Took some Brits to their first shoot once. I destroyed 30 years of gun control in 2 hours.
it’s the unknown experiance that people have that makes them judgemental. Once they experiance it the awareness is plainly obvious. The First time you ride a bike, go swimming, take a jump out of a plane, ect. They should forcebly make people take firearms class before they talk shit about it. Same with reporters, Don’t know squat till they get thrown in a firefight then they’re experts.
I liked that story about the liberal reporter who went to Walmart to buy a gun, and found out to her chagrin that it was a lot more difficult than she had been led to believe. I could just hear her thinking to herself, “But Obama told me that it was easier than buying a book!”
But then there are some people who cannot control their fear. Like the (Chicago I think) reporter who fired one shot out of an AR-15 and about shit his pants.
That was the Gershkunt (Gersh Kuntzman) of the New York Daily News.
Seen the same thing too many times to count. New shooter, or afraid of firearms, anti-gun, etc. Then the scales fall from their eyes. I always got some variation of, “This is fun!”
Always start new shooters out with a safety class. A couple of those people sort looked like they’d picked up a point or two about muzzle direction, but trigger discipline was crap. And the one wild swing!
First time shooting a gun should be a .22LR in a bolt action rifle, not a 9mm pistol or a 12ga shotgun. Work up to bigger stuff, never start with it.
The “bug” that bit me was in the form of an old Marlin .22LR.
When I was 6 my Dad bought a bolt action rifle with a small scope. A few years later he took it out and showed me how to work the bolt, load, and shoot in the back yard. I remember that day because it was the Fourth of July.
I legit thought the brunette with bangs was Bailey Jay and I was thinking if I didn’t have enough reasons to not like Bailey Jay, I have more now. But it’s not her.
The left has gotten to the point that finding something fun, enjoyable or GASP empowering is a litmus test for whether or not it should be banned.
Their lot is misery and anger. Real or imagined.
“Not everything fun should be legal.”
Really? Everything fun *should* be legal — what else is the point? You wanna ban something, maybe have a pretty good reason, ban it narrowly, account for side-effects and abuse, and make sure you get the benefits you claim.
The lovely anti-people rant about guns as a “public health” issue, and I wish they’d really go there. Public health under the hood is all about securing more life, literally measuring *net* life-days gained vs. lost. So, let’s look at guns as a public health issue: How many citizens’ life-days are gained by guns in their hands, with some “feeling safer” sauce, and a garnish of frothy fun.
Those frothy first-timers aren’t so much snowflakes, though they may be that, too, but don’t want to own their own power, or allow you to own yours, either. You own the power of life or death over most of the people within a dozen yards, most of the time. Guns are OK in a controlled environment like a gun range, just means they think you are too dumb, reactive, and incompetent to possess that kind off power … which includes the power at the end of your arms. (Also you’re not enlightened enough to assess what’s important, and besides, you’re expendable.)
Not snowflakes, but fodder. Sad little fodder-larva who don’t realize they’ve been programmed into dealing with the world that leaves them fodder, embedded in others’ systems, orchestrated by others’ commands, conducted by maestros who aren’t them. (“Fundamentally transform” the country means influence, motivate, and direct others to go do what you think they should.) School system gatekeepers to better than serf-lives, who will drive you out for daring to practice a skill, or learn a tool, that they don’t sanction.
What’s the game here?
It these polyps in the choloacha of the body politic want to be relieved of their agency n choices, well, that’s their business to hope they’re kept by benevolent shepherds who will use them gently, and put them down gently when their usefulness is at an end. That’s a fine choice if you think the pastoralists’ instrumental “care” is better than you can do for yourself.
One wonders why they think so little of their own abilities and impact? They cling to the brittle self-regard of people who know they’re not worth a damn.
Jack says:
August 30, 2019 at 19:01
Did you shoot up hill? Both ways? In the snow? With only irons? Was someone on your lawn?
Good on you for doing what you needed to, but your attitude isn’t helping. Realizing the seriousness and the responsibility of the firearms is important but holy krap. It’s ok to enjoy shooting because it’s fun.
***********************************************************
The answer to your first 5 questions is yes, although a lawn was never involved.
Anyway, my attitude could be considered genetic. I come from a line of serious people that first set foot on this soil in 1632. Some were warriors. All were serious about survival, and all of them were skilled in weaponry as one of the means of survival.
I do understand that others enjoy punching holes in paper, or ringing steel, and I have no particular problem with that. There is some satisfaction in establishing your skill level and working to improve it, just as in any other endeavor. But to ignore the reality of what weapons are designed to do leads one down a dangerous path, politically and otherwise.
Why do you think advocates of gun control are so eager to pronounce that certain “approved” guns are fine for target shooting or some other innocuous activity under controlled and permitted circumstances? Because it’s an effective distraction that is embraced by the “guns are fun” folks.
@ GunnyGene:
“Because it’s an effective distraction that is embraced by the ‘guns are fun’ folks.
You make an interesting and, I think, valid point there. Nevertheless, I did get a chuckle out of the razing you took getting there. So, forgive me.
I don’t mind razing. It’s somewhat of a national pastime. 🙂
But, this entire thread edges up on what is commonly known (or maybe not so commonly known) as “Soft Tyranny”. You may be familiar with it. It’s a term and idea that was coined by de Tocqueville in 1835. We refer to the concept these days as the “Nanny State” and similar terms – such as “Social Democracy”. Plenty of info on the web about it.
PS: What is disturbing about “Soft Tyranny”, is that a significant portion of the US population is getting very comfortable with it – as illustrated in the video that is the subject of this thread – and throughout our society generally.
I have not been able to get them to do it. No matter what approach I use, they act as though I am asking them to handle a venomous snake.
That’s been my experience, too. I’ve taken a few newbies to the range, but they were already sort of pro-gun, or at least indifferent. But I’ve never had a hard-cord (or even medium-core) anti-gunner accept the offer.
My wife is medium-core if you want to call it that. She does not like the fact that I own guns. There has been a handful of times over the years she has said “well, I am glad you own guns. Just for that moment”, like when there was a dangerous guy running loose in our neighborhood/state park behind our house that it took police days to find. She wanted a handgun on in the bedside table or strapped to me the whole time.
She sure loves when I bring home venison or shoot a coon or fox getting in to our chickens.
She went to the range with me once last winter. She loved it, but also felt sick afterwards.
Hates guns, but loved shooting my 10/22 and busting some clays on the berm, knocking around the plastic spinner. Life’s been too busy to take her since, but probably taking her again in a few weeks. Sometimes its hard to change people’s deep seated long term beliefs. If you were deeply religious or atheist and someone tried to convince you your beliefs are wrong, even if they gave you some compelling evidence, would you do a 180 immediately?
Cognitive dissonance is a thing. It makes it hard to accept information that conflicts with beliefs. The deeper the belief, the harder it is to accept contrary information and it can manifest as physical illness, fatigue, anger, etc.
The fact that afterward she told me she loved it, but it made her feel dirty and disgusted because she hates guns. She did ask me to take her again (when it was warmer! Also when the kids are in school. She lets me teach the older two with 22s, but I only have 2 visitor passes for the range and she is nervous enough, don’t need any of the kids hanging out while trying to teach her to shoot).
It starts with putting their hands on guns. Soon enough, they’ll put their hands on doors to trucks, then their hands on payroll.
“we should all take at least a couple of non-gun owners out to fire their first shots each and every year”
I do. But frankly, there are some “non-gun owners” (how does someone own a ‘non-gun’?) who wouldn’t even make decent targets.
Too much serious talk. The old joke is 22 is a gateway caliber. If they find its fun, great. If all they figure out guns are an inanimate object, that’s fine too. The first step in getting people to be reasonable is to establish some common ground and eliminate the prejudice towards guns. Whatever follows is more likely to help than hurt 2a rights.
Making fun of Liberals only goes so far on this subject. At one time every American in public school was exposed to riflery and archery. Safety education about guns was a subject matter taught in every public school.
The gun community surrendered the public schools to the gun grabbers starting in the 1970s. Even Senator John Kerry had a gun permit from massachusetts in the 1960s. And so did Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s.
We as a society learned about the 2A and practiced rifle marksmanship in schools. Our national population was educated on its gun rights and responsibilities.
Now not so much.
You should have seen the smile on the face of the man that shot 21 people yesterday. Priceless.
Ass