Do you know what’s wrong with most gun owners? We think we know everything. Yes, many of us have had lots of training and some of us actually have some real-world experience. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing this column to disparage those all-knowing, been-everywhere-but-the-electric-chair guys. As much fun as that would be, I’m not talking about those guys. I’m talking about all the rest of us who seem to forget that we all started out knowing nothing about guns.
Think about the numbers for a minute: We currently have about 320 million people in this country. Some estimates put the number of gun owners around 100 million. Based on government figures, there are something like 12 million people with concealed carry permits in this great land of ours. If we are generous, we could say half of those 12 million have gotten some really good training.
That leaves us somewhere in the neighborhood of 314 million people who really don’t know much about guns at all. We can be upset with them or we can be patient with them and try to help them out.
This comes to mind today because I just returned from a well-known training school where some of the more experienced students seemed surprised with the lack of knowledge some of the entry-level students displayed. The key term here is “entry-level.” That is something we all need to remember. Not everyone knows as much as we know and that is OK.
I could see the level of frustration and concern among the experienced shooters in the group as instructors would say things like, “Grab that pistol in a proper firing grip.”
The level of concern grew as new shooters would make safety errors. Sure, the instructors were right there to keep things as safe as possible, but elsewhere on the line there was a fair amount of eye rolling and some muttered comments about how the “newbies” were truly dangerous.
Yep. They were dangerous. That is why they were there. The instructors did a great job of moving those new shooters along the continuum. And it was my hope that the experienced shooters would welcome these newly minted defensive shooters into the ever-growing group of legal, safe, conscientious gun owners ready and willing to be responsible for their own personal protection.
It is OK for people to be new at this and head off to get training. It is our job as knowledgeable gun owners to point those new people in the right direction and encourage them to learn and grow. If we make them feel unwelcome or make it seem like we don’t approve of their inexperience, we become a barrier to entry for new shooters. No one wants to go to a shooting school to be made to feel bad about their level of experience. We all started at the bottom. All of us, at one point, had never before picked up a handgun. We all needed someone to tell us how to do it.
One thing that experienced shooters seem to forget is how daunting those first few training days can be. New shooters are starting at zero. They may indeed not even know how to hold the pistol properly. It is the job of the instructors to teach them and the job of their fellow students to encourage them.
Make it your mission to be supportive to new shooters. Talk to them. Encourage them. Make them feel welcome. We need more responsibly armed Americans. The best way to see our numbers grow is to show people we will help them along every step of the way.
