Despite my better judgment, I gave in to curiosity and watched a video over the weekend that I wished I hadn’t. The video included the ridiculous statement that women will never be treated equally at the range, and it went on to paint almost all men in the shooting community as misogynistic knuckle draggers. While there have been others that have done a fine job of chiming in on this inaccurate video, I feel the need to add my 2 cents.
While likely unintentional, this video does a huge disservice to those of us that are trying to encourage more women to participate in shooting and the shooting sports (dissing men is not cool either). There’s no doubt that learning to shoot can be an intimidating experience (for both sexes), and adding to the fear and anxiety with a poorly thought out rant is extremely counterproductive to the cause.
I’m not an expert shooter, but I’ve been shooting for just over 3 years, and for the last two, I’ve been very involved in USPSA and IDPA. I try to get at least 500-1000 down range every month, and that means lots of time at multiple ranges. I’ve visited dozens of gun shops, pawn shops and gun shows in several states and I am hard pressed to come up with more than a couple of examples where I was treated badly. In every case where someone was less than friendly to me, they were treating BOTH men and women with the same amount of disrespect. In other words, it’s not you, it’s them.
I’m not saying the shooting community doesn’t have undesirable characters, of course it does (just like every other segment of the general population). What I am saying is that if someone is giving you unwarranted attention or is treating you with disrespect at the range or gun store, it’s extremely unlikely it’s because you are female.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the people that make up the shooting community are the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. I am extremely grateful for the help I’ve gotten from the men and women who have taken the time to help me become a better shooter, and I welcome their continued advice, solicited or not.
Mz. VRWC and I went to the Lucky Gunner.com Blogger shoot, near Knoxville, Tennessee and had an amazing adventure. The blog shoot was part of BulletFest 2011, a full-auto, car shootin’, appliance killing, Tannerite laced cacophony, held in support of the Wounded Warrior Project.
Lucky Gunner offered us free ammo, a chance to shoot a few machine guns, social time with other gun bloggers and a few surprises. If the event was half as good as it appeared, we figured it would be worth it to fly out from Arizona to Tennessee.
It would be a tremendous understatement to say that Lucky Gunner under-promised and over-delivered on this event. They were even thoughtful enough to provide us with “ammo waitresses”, who would get us ammo and water, so we never had to leave the firing line.
We started off with an informal meet-and-greet at a local pizza place on Friday night, where we heard rumors of tanks and other surprises. We also got to meet many of the people we would be shooting alongside. We had great conversations with Mike from Firearms Anonymous and his Army buddy, Fill Yer Hands, Reverend Kenn Blanchard, M.J. Mollenhour and Angela from LuckyGunner.
As we pulled into the range, it suddenly became clear that we were falling down the rabbit hole and into the gunny version of Wonderland. We were overwhelmed at the amount of machine guns, military hardware, ammo, smoke, noise, and hospitality available.
The 9mm subcompact and 1911 in .45 ACP that I brought along seemed inadequate compared to what was available to shoot. As I vaguely recall, I shot a lot of machine guns, including a BAR, M16s in various calibers and configurations, HKs, grease guns, and…then it all turns into one smoky blur of bullet sprayers, exploding appliances, and carbeques. I lost track of how many full-auto guns I shot in the first day. By the end of the day, I had even shot a civil war cannon!
There were tanks, half tracks, artillery, an EODT attack dog demonstration, guests of honor, and Veterans, appreciation for what our service men and women have faced for our country, great conversation, ammo waitresses, chicks with guns, handgun training, Gunnie Awards, and too way much fun to describe in just one blog post. We didn’t even get to meet all of the bloggers.
Guests of Honor at Bullet Fest 2011
We’ll be posting more about the blog shoot and giving shoutouts to more of the participants and link love to new friends. Until then, check out Rob Reed‘s compilation video of the blog shoot.
I’ll be getting practical pistol training from the top Women shooters in the country – Deb Ferns (founder of BWB), Kay Clark Miculek, Lisa Munson, Annette Aysen, and Deb Keehart. Words can’t describe how fortunate I feel to be getting instruction from these amazing Women.
