Perusing the blog of Eric Raymond the other day, and following on from the previous posting here about Brad Pitt, I wanted to put up this account of Raymond instructing a certain Terry Pratchett in how to shoot a firearm:
This is actually a very revealing thing to do with anyone. You learn a great deal about how the person handles stress and adrenalin. You learn a lot about their ability to concentrate. If the student has fears about violence, or self-doubt, or masculinity/femininity issues, that stuff is going to tend to come out in the student’s reactions in ways that are not difficult to read.
Terry was rock-steady. He was a good shot from the first three minutes. He listened, he followed directions intelligently, he always played safe, and he developed impressive competence at anything he was shown very quickly. To this day he’s one of the three or four best shooting students I’ve ever had.
Eric concludes:
But it was teaching Terry pistol that brought home to me how natively tough-minded he really is. After that, the realism and courage with which he faced his Alzheimer’s diagnosis came as no surprise to me whatsoever.
Several years ago, I attended a four-day defensive handgun course in Nevada, and have fired pistols subsequently in the US when I had the chance. I am not stating anything here that wont’ be obvious to Samzidata regulars in noting how much concentration is required to shoot well, to position oneself, and also how careful, methodical and disciplined good shooters have to be. Forget all the crap you see on the movies (although there are film actors, such as Kiefer Sutherland and Daniel Craig, who clearly have been taught properly).
To anyone who has been trained to shoot, it’s obvious how the experience matures you. It’s too bad more people haven’t had the experience.
I was a bit surprised to learn that, here in Canada, the civilian clubs and schools are not allowed to use human-shaped targets. I guess the feel-gooders want to abstract the experience as much as possible, and take away any sense that it might be something to be used for self defence. But I always found “Ivan” (the silhouetted eastern-block soldier depicted on our military targets) to be a reminder that I was being training to kill an actual person, if the situation warranted it. It’s probably irresponsible to train someone to shoot without emphasizing that aspect of it.
I have noticed that some TV shows do a very good job of depicting shooting. The Wire comes to mind. They took pains to show the difference between those who approached it in a professional manner and those who did not (whether good guy or bad guy).
To anyone from a former eastern-block country, my apologies about “Ivan.” That’s just the way it was.
We had an interesting incident here in NYC last year.
Some nutjob tried to shoot up both cops and civilians in Times Square using a MAC 10.
He held it sideways the “cool” way he’d seen in the movies, TV etc. The weapons jammed without firing a single shot.
Thank God for Hollywood weapons disinformation.
Tedd, there is actually a law in Canada prohibiting human silhouette targets?
I’ve talked about this endlessly, but there is no better way to achieve self-discipline than by trying to shoot well. I’ve shot just about every type of gun ever made, and with every one I’m humbled by how difficult it is to shoot really well, no matter how good the gun.
Most guns, even the cheap ones, are more accurate than 90% of their owners can shoot them. When you watch the truly good shots, it’s a humbling experience.
I remember once shooting with a good friend, the blogger formerly known as “Doc Russia”, and watching the tiny hole in the center of his target barely grow as he fired round after round (Colt 1911 in .45 ACP, at a distance of 25 yards). Then, when I peeped around at his booth to make a comment, I discovered that he was achieving this scarcely-believable accuracy by shooting one-handed, with his left hand jammed casually into his trouser pocket. When he pulled the target in after 50 rounds, the diameter of the hole was smaller than palm-sized. (Anyone who’s ever fired a 1911 Government will know exactly why I speak with such reverence about this level of skill.)
My own Son&Heir, one-time Texas State Champion at 10m Air Pistol (bulls-eye diameter: 1/4″) and 50-metre Free Pistol (bulls-eye diameter: 2″), is the only person I know who can shoot that well (he’s an even better long-range rifle shot, but he prefers to shoot pistols). When the S&H still shot competitively, he was nationally-ranked in the top 10 in both disciplines (but still couldn’t make Team USA for the Olympics, although he was on the “development squad”). He times his shots between heartbeats, FFS.
What both the above men have is an extraordinary degree of self-discipline and self-awareness, coupled with almost superhuman muscle control which only comes from endless hours of practice. (At the USOC facility in Colorado Springs, the S&H would shoot over five hundred rounds in a single session, and Doc Russia and I have easily shot over two thousand rounds in an afternoon at the range.)
I am no more than a competent shot with a handgun (better with a rifle), but I was once told by a SWAT commander that I was a better shot than all but two men on his team — the difference being the endless hours of practice.
That’s not why I shoot. Why I shoot is that wonderful, almost indescribable feeling of calm which comes over me after a session at the range, when the adrenaline disappears and I experience a Zen-like state of peace. All shooters know this, and it is, bar none, the best way to relax — much better, incidentally, than sex because you aren’t required to cuddle up to your Ruger afterwards.
Incidentally, most silhouette targets sold at our gun ranges are now either red or green and not black, because racism. I still have a stash of about a thousand black silhouettes, which I sometimes use at public ranges just to piss people off. Sadly, most ranges I visit are not frequented by the PC crowd, so nobody gets offended.
Everyone should have the experience of shooting a firearm at least once. It would help eliminate some of the gross irrationality which pervades the whole issue of gun control. (True “gun control” is, of course, precisely what Kim was describing!)
I hadn’t before heard that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer’s. Such a pity.
I find shooting to be very relaxing – it’s necessary to be relaxed in order to do it even remotely well. Sadly, I don’t get to do it much, these days (pre-Dunblane, I used to be in the B-string of my University’s rifle team – .22 long at 30m, would consistently hit high 80s / low 90s, best round was a 96, so impressed with your son’s ability, Kim).
Agree entirely about the zen thing; I could shrink to a disembodied eyeball, and also used to do the heartbeat thing unconsciously (a friend who would have been on the 1980 US Olympic team, claims he can skip heartbeats for this).
I can see how ESR thinks teaching someone to shoot reveals their character; an interesting point to think on. No surprise Pratchett picked the knack up, but pleasing to see he’s got it, Alzheimer’s or no. Funnily enough, I have an intermittent hand-twitch – and have had since I was a boy – and it only goes away when my hand gets a steering wheel or a gun in it.
But Kim, it’s not wrong if I do cuddle up to my Ruger afterwards, right? Right?
😉
At the club where I’m a member here in Spain, there are a small number of people who can hit with the accuracy you mentioned for ‘Doc Russia’ (I’m not one, I hasten to add) at the competitions I attend. It‘s a very demanding sport and like any sport those who put in the many, many hours of practice required are the ones that excel.
To anyone who is at all knowledgeable about guns, their depiction on TV is risible. I did however get a lot of satisfaction from teaching my Guardian reading Sister and BIL how to shoot, maybe now they can untwist the panties of some of their friends if the subject of guns ever comes up. Or at least offer them a different perspective. With gun confiscation in the UK some years back, it is no longer an issue there, perhaps if Farage is the next PM the issue might resurface there.
They also brought in a ban on human shaped targets here recently, numbskulls. I’m told by people at the range that it is a Euro-wide thing.
Hmm, maybe they can shape the targets as small furry animals…
Dry End, it’s never wrong to cuddle up to your gun. I would counsel caution, however, because cuddling up to a hot gun immediately following a range session can cause severe burns.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
Kim, John Lennon knew that!
All this shooting stuff has triggered a happy memory of shooting.22 rifles in the Navy cadets. Our (scary) Chief Petty Officer, a WW2 veteran equalmto any Sgt Major, asked one lad who was not obviously of the right stuff why only 4/5 of his shots were on the target (at a ridculously short range AIR), and quick as a flash he said that one shot must have passed through a previous hole. I don’t think the lad enjoyed his next drill session.
Perry:
I can’t quote the actual law, and I don’t belong to a civilian gun club (thinking about joining, though). But I have been told by club members that human-silhouette targets are banned. Black ink is allowed. I might be tempted to go for green.
Kim:
I spent two weeks “living with” my rifle during basic training, as punishment for a weapons infraction. I.e., the only time I was allowed not to have it in my hand, 24/7, was while eating in the mess. I hope that’ll be the last time I cuddle with one! I’m sure a pistol under the pillow is more comfortable than an FN C1 on the chest all night long.
Alisa, and friends, the only Peecee target would be a silouette of Rupert Murdock, one of the better-known successful capitalists- though I think you could do a fun line of Daleks and Cybermen targets, also! Any enterprising capitalists up for the challenge?
I wonder what would be the “PC” reaction to targets showing the following:
face of Rush Limbaugh
Silhouette of SUV
face of Sarah Palin
Star of David (with or without framing stripes)
face of Charles and/or David Koch
American flag
Union Jack
Cross
Regarding PC targets: I imagine that, in Canada, you could get away with a Conrad Black silhouette.
As much as I enjoy target shooting with rifles and pistols, it’s hard not to love the instinctive, reptile-brain joy of skeet shooting. If you haven’t tried it I highly recommend that you do. Back in the days when aiming and shooting were key skills, fighter pilots in Canada were required to shoot skeet every month.
And what has a skeet ever done to YOU? Some of my best friends are skeets!
If silhouettes are a no-go, does that mean that I should start a retirement gig of smuggling photorealistic targets into Canada? I’ve got a bunch of black market ICE-QTs that look like Ernest Borgnine with scoring rings,,,
Any film with people shooting each other, car chases and the like isn’t worth watching anyway, so the unrealistic gun handling is irrelevant.
Shooting a pistol well (PPC) may well be the most-demanding physical skill I ever learned.
Shooting a shotgun well (trap & skeet) may well be the most-demanding mental skill I ever learned.
I never was able to learn to shoot a rifle well, and to this day would not take any off-hand shot at live game.
Kim du Toit – As it happens, I slept last night at the Hampton Inn on Geyser Drive in Colorado Springs. The USOC shooting facility is listed in the hotel guide as an ‘attraction’. I’ll say. I wonder how many places on the Left and Right coasts would list such a facility as an ‘attraction’.
As I crossed East Colfax on my way back to DIA, I bethought me of long-time commenter Sunfish. Can the management not reach out to him to return?
llater,
llamas
It was all a long time ago, but I still have my red rifle-with-a-crown badge over it somewhere around.
For those not familiar with the nuances of English public school cadet forces, that’s a marksman’s badge which amongst other things requires putting six shots in a 6″ group at 200 yards using a Leigh-Enfield .303 no less.
Doesn’t get me far in this company, I guess, but I was – and am – awfully proud to have achieved that at age fifteen or so.
Andrew, I had one of those in the CCF! And was very proud to earn it at the age of 15, along with a marksman’s in small-calibre (I think the grouping for 0.22 was 1″). However, mine I earned with an L1A1, which has nothing like the kick of the Lee Enfield .303 (in fact doesn’t really have a kick at all) – but I suspect doesn’t do quite so well with accuracy.
Tedd wrote: “To anyone who has been trained to shoot, it’s obvious how the experience matures you.”
Eric Raymond’s essay, Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun goes into this, and more besides, in great detail.
Rob Fisher:
Thanks for that essay, it touched on many themes I have often thought about. I particularly like the idea that, through democracy, we all have tremendous destructive power in our hands, so we ought to have some experience in choosing how to use it. Of all the things that separate the libertarian from those with other points of view, the understanding that government is essentially about the use of force is probably the most fundamental. Most people I know think of government as a kumbaya exercise, like running a social club, and ignore the important facts that this is a club you did not choose to join, can not choose to leave (in any practical sense), and which wields the power of life and death over you.
@Tedd – ‘….instinctive, reptile-brain joy of skeet shooting.’
Oh, boy. I’ll never see myself the same way again. 🙂
Your saurian chum,
llater,
llamas
A certain kaffir with authorial inclination whose books I’ve been known to purchase was seen to bleat: “— much better, incidentally, than sex because you aren’t required to cuddle up to your Ruger afterwards.”
Oh boy I’m so ratting you out to the redhead, got her email? 😉
Pete:
Are you crazy? The *ONLY* movies worth watching are sequences of gun shots, explosions and car chases hooked together by one liners.
Anything else is better off read.
Interesting that one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, learned to shoot and did it well. I can only assume it was after his book, “Men at Arms,” which was an extended version of the anti-gun myth that firearms induce violence in their owners. This is the only book of Pratchett’s I have read which made me grind my teeth in disgust in order to finish it. Given the rest of his work, and his British home, I can understand his lapse in this one book’s case.
To The Management (and llamas): I miss Sunfish too.