It's Not Like Fortnite

TJ has been doing really well in school lately.  His grades are up, his poor behavior is down, he made the Track Team(!), and has been good to his brother. This new level of maturity was rewarded with a chance to go shooting with his sister, her boyfriend, Mitchell, and me.  

We own a lot of Nerf guns. Our house is littered with Nerf bullets and parts of guns; silencers, bi-pods, butt-stocks. A good Nerf war is never out of the question as long as it is outside (no guns in the house). The boys are master snipers, gun-slingers, and are experts at magazine exchanges - thanks to watching YouTube videos and playing Fortnite.  However, taking a real gun, with real bullets is a whole different experience. 

I remember the first gun I ever shot was my uncle's 357 magnum revolver; a massive gun in the hands of a 12 or 13 year old boy. The gun jumped in my hand and I was more then happy to hand it back after about six rounds.  My hand hurt afterwards.  

TJ has handled guns before.  Both boys have learned the basics of firearms safety; weapon on safe, finger off the trigger, and always pointed away from people (down range). They know the basics of how to take a weapon and make it safe.  They have even started to learn how to take apart a gun and put it back together.  They have fired .22s and shotguns at camp and with our friends but the guns we shot yesterday were "big".

TJ was apprehensive.  All of that bravado in running around with Nerf guns was appropriately humbled on the range.  We had a few guns; some are mine and some are Mitch's.  After the mandatory safety briefing, we donned our eye and hearing protection and entered the firing line.  

TJ did not want to shoot first.  He was happy with sitting and watching. Indoor ranges enhance the pressure waves of gun fire and I think he was very surprised how big this invisible force was.  

I finally got him to the line with five rounds in the pistol.  He took his time and fired.  Then he took even more time and fired again.  Yes, I told him to go slow between shots but this was glacial.  The good news is that he did everything correctly even if the gun jumped in his hands a little bit.  

We moved on to the M-4.  Both Mitch and I own one but in different configurations.  TJ favored Mitch's because it was lighter and had a red-dot reticle as opposed to my iron sights.  He followed all of our instructions and did really well.  It turns out that shooting is NOT like the movies, or video game, or Nerf guns at all.  TJ clearly has a new respect for guns.

However, in an ironic twist at the end of the day, we learned that the video game developers from Epic, the makers of Fortnite, use this indoor range for their weapons research!  The range rents all of those exotic weapons to anyone who wants to try them.  So the illusion of gun-slinging met the reality of shooting a firearm.  

I have not heard TJ talk/ask about the next time we can go to a range. If he had the desire I'd take him and let him improve his knowledge around guns.  Instead he is more like me; he knows how to be safe with them and he knows how to use them but he is not so enamored with them that he MUST have them.  

Next - time to clean them!