New shooter report

Tuesday I reported on taking Priyanka to the range for her first experience shooting guns. It turns out that her officemate overheard us talking and asked to go with us. He had never shot a gun before either and really wanted to try it.

I didn’t really want to take two new shooters to the range at the same time when I only had one small booth to work in. So I offered to take him to the range on Wednesday (last night).

It’s always interesting to see what different students have trouble with and how to come up with an exercise to get them past it. Priyanka had trouble shooting fast and accurately. Shooting slow and accurate wasn’t a problem. By moving the target very close she could exercise the “fast” aspect without having to worry about the accurate part so much. Then when the target went back out to a more normal distance she was able to combine the two skills she had learned.

Andrei had problems with pulling his shots low and left. Because of the Crimson Trace laser on the Ruger Mark II I could see that he was aiming well but just as the gun would go off it would dip low and left. Dry fire exercises enable him to see the problem as well. I told him to do most of the squeezing of the grip with his weak hand and concentrate on just moving his trigger finger so his dominate hand didn’t grasp at the same time as the trigger finger moved. Plus, pay less attention to having a good sight picture and more attention to getting a surprise trigger break. It was hard for him but more and more shots started going where they belonged.

After putting a 100 or so rounds of .22 LR down range he wanted to try the Gun Blog 45. Here he is looking for the little knob on the side of the magazine (like on the Ruger Mark II) to push the follower down:

I didn’t let him struggle for long and soon he was getting pretty good results with the .45:

Andrei is originally from Canada but is currently working for a company in California (this company is partnering with Microsoft on a project so he is in Redmond for a while). He asked about how he could buy a gun. What does he have to do? What kind of guns could he buy? I told him what I knew about the gun laws in Canada, California, and Washington and told him that California was more oppressive than Washington and Canada was much more oppressive but he could still have handguns in Canada if he put in enough effort. He said he wanted to stay in the U.S.

I had put on my holster and gun (Gun Blog 45 and the Blackhawk holster I got last year when I went to summer camp) as soon as we got in the car which I had parked off campus. As we left the range he commented on concealed carry and so I explained licenses, open carry, and the laws in Washington versus California. He seemed quite interested and eager to learn more. Next week is not available because Barb will be visiting but if he is still in town the week after I’ll offer to take him to the range again.

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4 thoughts on “New shooter report

  1. Hi Joe,

    Last I checked (and this is a matter dear to my heart), aliens require a permit in Washington:

    http://www.dol.wa.gov/business/firearms/faalienreq.html

    and apparently they no longer issue them:

    http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247268

    I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this is no longer the case. Unless Andrei has attained US Citizenship, he would (perversely) have a much better time in California, where permanent residents simply need 3 months’ proof of residence to buy a gun, not one. (Non-residents are screwed either way.)

    Sad but true. My wife and I are attempting to relocate, and I ruled out Washington for this reason alone. I won’t willingly live somewhere I am totally disarmed.

    (If you’re ever down at SVC etc, send out a mail — there’s a thriving community of shooters down here.)

    -R

  2. It depends on whether they are a “permanent resident alien” or here on a temporary work or school visa. Permanent resident aliens do not need the alien firearm license. See here for details.

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