Agreed but....i would say it takes a fair bit of effort to hit someone with enough force to kill them...also everything that youve said is within immediate proximity (ie next to you) a gun could be fired from a range with no effort and kill once its connected with the intended target. Im not taking the hardline "Pete1950" stance but just offering a bit of debate but i can see where your're coming from....
Oh I completely agree about the proximity, the point I was trying to make (probably badly) was that if properly trained and supervised someone target or clay pigeon shooting would never point a gun at another person whether they are next to them or at range. A good debate is healthy
Absolutely - totally agree but, i would say trying to transfer that respect to the mind of a minor is a difficult thing.....in the case of our american friend theres a few things that come into play..... Some have said on here that he wasnt positioned to stop the gun veering off - that i cant answer or confirm as ive never held a gun in my life and wouldnt want to - so weather she meant to or no - respect for the firearm doesnt come into it as its a physical thing....kinda goes back to the base argument of children not being allowed to handle guns... I have a friend who goes shooting quite often - drives up to scotland quite often to go hunting deer on a friends estate. What he kills he brings back with him....i think its some sort of scoped rifle...so while i disagree with guns i can kind of see why he like to do it but dont agree with the fact that he does enjoy it....having said all of that a clean shot to the head (for the deer is probably the most humane way of doing it) providing he got the head shot.... Lots of sides to this argument...sorry debate...!
On a serious note, this picture makes a good point about proximity and gun drill. I think that's the Century Range at Bisley and by the look of it the 600 yard lanes. (Possibly 300. Hard to tell from photo). Beyond those trees behind the backstop (the sand bank behind the targets) is the M3 and densely populated Surrey. There is very little margin for error. The shooters are probably using a .308 (7.62 mm) or something like a 6.5 mm/.260 or maybe a .284 Win. If fired 30 degrees to the horizontal a medium weight bullet from any of those calibres will travel between 3000 and 5000 yards before it hits the ground and will retain enough energy to kill. Imagine how easy it would be to send a bullet over those trees through accidental discharge or incompetent scope dialling. Just leaving a loaded rifle propped on its bipod would provide enough elevation to send a round into the wide blue yonder if it was discharged accidentally (which is why doing so is an error that can get you thrown off the range); or if an inexperienced shooter had moved down to 300 yards from 1000 and in a moments inattention dialled the elevation turret on his scope the wrong way he could easily shoot high enough to clear the backstop with potentially catastrophic results. That is why there are very strict rules on club membership and safety drill and why new members must serve a period of probation under the watchful eye of their club Range Officer before they are issued with a shooters certificate which qualifies them to shoot on other ranges. And why it is against NRA policy to allow 9 year olds to discharge automatic weapons on the range while they wait for their burger to cook. By the way Comysofa, heart and lung shots for deer. Headshots only for very close range. Engine room shots (side -on, half way up the ribcage immediately behind the foreleg) are the best way to ensure a humane kill.
I used to train at Strensall near York. I recall some Army gents blasting off with abloody great machine gun from a 1000 yds we couldn't use the ranges either side of them because we wanted to shoot from 500yds down to 20yds. They used tracer they wer hitting the targets but the rounds were flying off in all directions after hitting it
I belong to a club which uses a military range and they shoot tracer. A while back someone thought it would be a good idea to replace the sand in the backstop with shredded rubber. Markers in the butts used to get showered with bits and it was easy to miss bullet splashes. There are still bits of rubber littering the range down at the 50 yard mark. When the military had a tracer session they set fire to it. They've gone back to sand now...
I did a bit of shooting when I was in the Sea Cadets. It was inside a proper MOD range and was interesting, but didn't leave me with the overriding feeling that I must continue. Being a good marksman remains a very impressive skill
A gun is a tool designed to accelerate lumps of lead in a direction of one's choosing. It's the decision of the trigger - puller as to what the lead should be flung at. Guns are not scary beasts to be feared, just tools to be used for different tasks. It's the bad people that have access to them that make them a bad thing. Other tools are just as dangerous and deadly in the hands of nutters. Archery is also a sport which uses a tool designed to fling stuff. I don't see anyone complaining about archers and children playing archery, despite the bows formidable history as a killing tool; it was killing people long, long, long before firearms were.
