Remember this little factoid the next time you hear the anti-gun groups claim that the only people driving gun sales are established gun owners just adding to their collections:
The report shows that one-fifth of target shooters in America first started participating in the shooting sports between 2008 and 2012. That means 20 percent of all target shooters began participating in the past five years.
The data from the survey also shows that newer shooters are more likely to be young (under 35), female, and urban dwellers.
Given what I’ve seen at gun ranges (a lot of older men teaching younger women to shoot handguns) I’m not at all surprised. The only problem is that some of the good ol’ boys on the range don’t like it and can be rude to the women. But that won’t last. Everyone knows that the more people we have involved with shooting sports, the better.
I’m one of those new gun owners. I started shooting in December 2011 and now I’m a gun nut. My brother started a couple months before.
Winning…
Growth has been explosive at my fish and game club to the point we have instituted a membership cap.
They are mostly new shooters.
Why???
In some cases, too many members means the facilities are always full. Most clubs around here, unfortunately, have caps even when their ranges are largely empty pretty much any time you go.
Or has been noticed that while the range can support more shooters, the damage from carelessness/stupidity can get to be expensive if not lead to liability.
While my two kids started shooting in their early teens, before the 2008 election, they have both become gun owners in the past fire years.
I’m doing my part – have you gotten your kids guns yet?
You know what they say, once you go black(gun), you’ll never go back.
Easiest way to get Anti’s and non shooters to our side is to take them out to the range with you. At the very least they will see that guns are not all that bad and scary, and are downright fun to shoot.