Shooting

Everything begins somewhere, and we all began as shooters through the good offices of someone—a father, grandfather, uncle, family friend, neighbor or someone else. But we all started somewhere.
I started in what I suppose was the most traditional of ways. My father was a superb shot—a natural athlete, in fact, good at whatever he chose, whether basketball or golf or pitching horseshoes. He gave me exposure to shooting at just the right time, which was any time post-partum. I was fascinated with guns, anything that would shoot. I was allowed to handle guns upon request, though not necessarily allowed to shoot; but it was enough.
Problem was, Dad was no teacher. He could not communicate how he did what he did—mostly, I suspect, because he really didn’t know how he did what he could do. He just did those things. As I remember, the sum total of his instruction with a shotgun was that you had to “lead” a bird. And this was all carried out with wild game. We never shot targets. Targets in his view were wasteful of ammunition and thus money, never in great supply at our house. Besides, there was nothing to eat in the end.
I did not inherit his natural athleticism. Perhaps he found that a disappointment. But I did become a teacher, of all manner of things from literature to writing to history to art to music to natural history to shooting. I cannot remember a single serious occupation that hasn’t involved teaching something. I like to believe that everyone has a gift, and that one, I guess, is mine.
Maybe you know someone to whom you’d like to pass along the joy of shooting. Children seem naturally drawn to it. But where to start, and where to go?

I’m of two minds on the concept that timing is everything, just as I am on the difference between nature and nurture. Fact is, some boys don’t take to shooting but some girls do. So let’s not discriminate by gender.
But let us do keep two things in mind: One is physical, the other psychological. Up to a certain age and level of physical development, children just don’t have the upper-body strength to handle a gun. Give them one too soon and they inevitably will lean backward to support the weight. Some grown women do the same thing, and at any age it is anathema to good shooting. Weight must be tipped forward, onto the leading foot; otherwise, balance is compromised. Anyone too physically weak in arms and shoulders to hoist and swing a gun shouldn’t be asked to attempt it.
The other thing to remember is that children’s little brains are not yet fully formed. The frontal lobe, where judgment resides, isn’t complete until the late teens or early 20s. (Wish I’d known that 50 years ago.) With judgment comes safety, and safety is paramount. I cringe at video games in which bad guys explode in splatters of blood and at movies that hold mass destruction universally cool. Is this the message we want to send?
For very young children I recommend toy guns—but they should be treated as if they were as deadly as the real thing, never to be pointed at anything you don’t wish to kill. Toys are lightweight enough to be handled, but herein lies the beginning of a sense of responsibility, and I hope that is the message we wish to send. As best I can tell, most toy guns are made in the image of high-tech military arms that have little to do with sport. Orvis sells one that is a toy version of a proper side-by-side game gun, and that I applaud. Whatever toy you can get, take your kid hunting with it, making sure he treats it and your dog and yourself and the birds with all of the respect and caution everything deserves.
If you start early, you should know long in advance which of your protégé’s eyes is dominant. There are at least a half-dozen ways of determining this, from a small circle made with two hands to the ultra-sophisticated instrument we use in Fieldsport schools: a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. Have the child hold it in his left hand (assuming he’s right-handed), raise it at arm’s length with both eyes open, and look through it at your eye. You’ll know which eye is dominant just by seeing which one is looking down the tube. The “both eyes open” part is extremely important. If at all possible, a shooter should keep both eyes open, which is far better for judging distance and angles. Keep in mind that boys are more likely than girls to be same-side dominant. It’s because girls have more sophisticated brains.
If you detect eye dominance before you start teaching gun handling, you can make things easier. If you have a left-eyed shooter, teach him (or more likely her) to shoot left-handed. That way you don’t have to monkey with patches on eyeglasses, squinting or any of the other remedies that become necessary when habits are settled. And if you think about it, a beginner feels equally awkward shooting from either side, so what does it matter?
Your beginner will be sensitive to both noise and recoil. Giving a little kid a gun and load that kicks like hell means you deserve to have hell kicked out of you just for being a dummy. This is a time for smallbores and very light loads. And by “smallbores” I don’t mean a .410. I’m aware that there’s a current fad for the .410, largely among people who don’t seem to realize what a miserable thing it is. A 28-gauge is a far better choice, especially with skeet loads. There you’re building in more likelihood of success, and success should be what you’re looking for. If you want to soften recoil to the max, make it a gas-operated autoloader.
Young ears are no better able to withstand noise than old ones are. Understand that hearing loss from high-impact sound is not something that comes back; it’s nerve damage, it’s permanent and it’s irreversible. Please don’t allow a youngster to shoot without hearing protection, whether plugs of some sort, muffs or whatever. If someone had done that for me, “huh?” wouldn’t be every third word out of my mouth now.
Whatever gun you decide upon needs to be at least an approximate fit to the shooter. Length of pull is the main dimension. Don’t worry about the niceties until some measure of technique is well in place. But length is important. Hand a kid a gun that’s too long in the stock and he’ll do the same thing he would with one that’s too heavy—bend backward at the waist instead of leaning forward. That’s not what you want. And don’t spout any wishful thinking about his “growing into it.” The first thing he’ll do is grow out of the desire to shoot. If you end up with six different stocks of various lengths, so what? You’ll have a happy shooter, and that should be what you’re looking for.
I do not advocate shooting with a pre-mounted gun, except for beginners. I want them to get a sense of how the gun should feel when it’s mounted. There’s plenty of time to learn the steps between a ready position and a mounted gun. I realize this sounds like starting at the end and working backward—and in a way I suppose it is—but the feel of a firm, crisp mount is a key element of what I want to leave behind. Without it, shooting is just futile noise-making.
And in the beginning, what to shoot? I haven’t yet met a kid who doesn’t like to see something shatter or fall, and I’ve had good success with clay targets suspended on a string. It doesn’t have to be moving; motion can come later. But a nice bright-orange disc that explodes into a gazillion bits lends a sense of accomplishment. All you need is a string fastened in a safe place, a box of clays and a roll of tape. Having a good supply of cartridges also helps, because kids, especially the really young ones, don’t seem to tire of it. Later you can set the target swinging to introduce the notion of looking ahead—remembering, of course, that you control every last round of ammunition.
What you’re looking for is a level of comfort, of understanding that a gun properly handled is neither something to be feared nor an invitation to mindless cocky behavior.
Many of us who can look back upon a lifetime of shooting seem to feel a bit disquiet about what the future has in store, given the trend of current events. Clearly, we cannot rely upon media, which appears bent upon tarring us all in the darkest possible shades. It is the soccer-mom mentality taken to a logical extreme, and that is not an extreme to which I care to go. I’d rather find some kid who’s unwilling to have someone else do his thinking for him. Maybe you know one. If you do, take him shooting. You could be shaping a life in a good way, and you just might make a friend.

Michael McIntosh is the author of such books as A.H. Fox, Wild Things, Best Guns, Shotguns and Shooting and More Shotguns and Shooting. His new book, Shotguns and Shooting Three, will be available this fall.