Youth Shooting Sports and Activities

Hello Everyone,

As I sit here at the laptop in the garage with the hum of my brass tumbler going in the corner, I noticed my son's special targets and figured I would write about youth shooting sports and activities.

His special targets are the 8" Birchwood Casey Dirty Bird Multi-Color Splattering,  he picked them out at the Local Wal-Mart(He is 5). Always going for tight groups I always steer towards the standard paper targets and never get the splatter style. But since he is young and in the world of technology, I try to get items that interests him and make him want to shoot good, specially since he is young an his mind wonders.

In this day of age with all the school shootings, terrorism and gun control advocates to name a few, I believe it is more important than ever to teach our youth PROPER gun safety, For as long as I can remember I was shooting BB guns and 22's and never once had a accident or even thought about using a gun to harm someone. One of the basic things I remember from my dad, Keep your finger off the trigger until your ready to shoot. Then I see Gun control advocates on TV holding up "Assault Rifles" telling the crowd how dangerous they are and low and behold they always have there fingers on the triggers. End of Rant!

Back to the topic, I know different parts of the country have different types of activities, so I follow different types of shooting sports on twitter, I see the US Rifle and pistol team, indoor teams and outdoor competitions. I like seeing youth being involved in various disciplines of shooting.

I think shooting aluminum cans is a great way for youth shooters to get started, start close and then keep moving them out farther and farther. Also for a little older youth, shotgun sports like trap and sporting clays would catch there attention and help them get started in the sport.

Indoor events range from air rifles/pistols to smallbore rifles/pistols and if your lucky enough to have them around you are a great way to shoot year around.

If you have a youth interested in shooting, get them involved in it, teach them safety first, safety safety safety. Then find something that attracts there attention and build off of that. If they like shooting cans, let them shoot them, if they like shooting targets, let them shoot them, if they want to shoot shotguns, let them shoot them. Get involved with your local range and get shooting.

Thanks for reading,
Rex