The past two weekends I’ve gotten to take my nephew to deer camp and to our family farm. The trip this past weekend to the farm was really special to me. Dad and I got to teach my nephew about firearms safety and he got to shoot his new 22 rifle!
As soon as I got in the truck Saturday morning, that’s all he could talk about. When are we going to be there? How much longer? When do I get to shoot? Are we close? Can we shoot as soon as we get there? I think he has a future as an interrogator as relentless as he is with the questions.
We taught him all about gun safety before we even let him pick the gun up:
- This is not a toy
- This can kill someone
- Never ever ever point it at someone
- Always act as if the gun is loaded
- You can’t recall the bullet after you have pulled the trigger
- Always look on the other side of whatever you are shooting at
- Never touch this or any other gun unless an adult is present
- Always unload your gun and leave the bolt open while walking
After we ran through all of this with him, I went over the parts and pieces of the gun and what makes it work, showed him how to line up the sights and explained to him the process of how a gun fires a bullet and the workings of that. Then it was the moment he’d been waiting all morning for.
I asked him what he wanted me to draw on the target, he said a monster. After I showed it to him, he said it looked more like a pumpkin. I obviously need to work on my drawing skills.
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| Not a monster, but a pumpkin… |
We set the target up downhill in the beans from where we were set up so we would be firing directly into the ground. He did very good loading, shooting and being safe with the firearm. He hit the target most of the time and wanted to check it out after every shot. I think his most prized shot was when he hit the tooth of the “pumpkin monster.”
We had an awesome time being a part of this great experience with my nephew and can’t wait to take him shooting again!
Below are some photos we snapped during our morning of shooting:
