Happy Marksmanship Day!  Today marks 250 years since the "shot heard round the world" at Concord's North Bridge on April 19, 1775.   To hear the full story of this day and how colonial marksmanship won the day (and learn rifle marksmanship), I highly recommend you sign-up for a Project Appleseed weekend.

I was THRILLED to teach a handgun course today.  What better way to celebrate American freedom than by passing along principles of marksmanship!  

Buying guns or spending money on ammo seems impossible when the price of basics like milk, eggs and gas have increased so much in the last few years.  Last year, I wrote about inflation and potential impact on gun owners.  I don't have numbers but it seems there are a LOT less dollars getting spent on the shooting sports now than a few years ago. 
Shooting skills will deteriorate over time if not maintained, so my main worry about this is that gun owners will not be ready to protect themselves if they don't practice.

I have two simple suggestions for those feeling the pinch who still want to stay sharp: 

1. Dry Practice - a huge percentage of your speed and accuracy can be built and maintained by perfect dry practice.  In order to dry practice safely, you'll need to know how to properly ensure your gun is unloaded and you'll also need a safe direction (something that can stop a bullet).  While there are tools that can help your dry practice sessions, you don't need any of them (see #2).  How good would you be if you spent 15 minutes dry practicing your concealed carry presentation and trigger press once or twice a week?  Very, very good.
   
2. Ignore gun and accessory advertisements - most gun owners (including me) love new guns and accessories but most of us don't need anything new.  Instead of buying new gear, spend a portion of that same money on good training or range time and get good with the gear you've already got. 

Crazy news out of Spotsylvania, Virginia this week.  A third grader brought a loaded gun to school in their backpack and it went off.  Both of the child's parents were arrested for allowing the kid access to a loaded gun.  

I thank God that no one was hurt in this incident.   Last time I wrote about a parent getting arrested for allowing their kid access to a gun, four people got killed.  I would like to suggest that gun owners always store their guns in a locked container to prevent unauthorized access.  I've got several quick access safes that I use around my house.  Even something cheap and simple would have prevent the most recent incident.

The murder rate in Indianapolis is decreasing, thanks to Indiana becoming a Constitutional Carry state.   I realize this isn't a scientific study that proves that good guys carrying guns lowers the violent crime rate but many studies have been done over the years.  The murder stats just prove common sense:

• Bad guys don't like to attack people who can protect themselves. 
  
• When bad guys get shot, some of them won't be able to continue in their criminal ways.  

I visited Charlotte, NC recently to see a Carolina Panthers game.  As we were walking to the stadium, I saw the image above etched on the sidewalk.  I love the idea of feeling safe walking around the city.  However, I don't think declaring somewhere a "Violence Free Zone" will actually make it true.  If so, why isn't everywhere a violence free zone?

I've written before about how important it is for all gun owners learn the basics of safe gun handling skills.  I was sickened by the news that a Virginia teen rapper accidentally killed himself on live stream.  I don't know the details and I didn't attempt to find the video.  His death, though, is completely preventable.  

Safe gun handling is not intuitive.  If you haven't been trained and intentionally apply the rules, you will not  automatically be safe.  You will likely automatically do what you've seen in pop culture.  Most TV shows and movies do NOT show safe handling.  The image below is a great example, the actor is pointing the gun in an unsafe direction with his finger on the trigger.  Review the rules and then apply them 100% of the time! 

Check out the video in this article of a man in South Florida pulling a gun in a road rage incident.  We don't know exactly what precipitated his actions, but the minute Mr. Slane gets out of his car with his gun in-hand, he's escalating the situation and no longer able to claim a shooting was in self-defense.  It appears that Mr. Slane didn't know how close he was to getting shot.  You can hear the man in the truck ask his wife, "Should I shoot him?"  Thankfully, the man in the truck kept his cool and no one got shot.   

This is another good video for us all to watch and think about how we would handle it if it happened to us.  I like that the man in the truck had his gun in his hand and kept it out of sight.  This definitely helped to de-escalate the situation.  Your handgun should be your last option.  Don't start shooting until you have no other choice.

Police in Georgia have charged Colin Gray with murder for allowing his son access to the gun he took to school and murdered 4 people.  I'm sad for all of the families impacted by this shooting.  I'm not going to argue whether the parent should be charged for the actions of his kid or not but Mr. Gray did break a basic rule of gun ownership:  "Store guns so they are not accessible to unauthorized persons."

I'm a huge fan of teaching kids to safely handle and shoot guns but I do not think they should have unfettered access to them.  Last year, we had 3 different incidents here in Powhatan County of kids bringing guns to school.  None of these resulted in a school shooting but they could have.  You don't have to buy an expensive safe to secure your guns, there are many inexpensive options which would make it very difficult for someone to get to your guns.  If you don't have a way to store your guns to keep them from unauthorized people, please get this done ASAP.  Consider it an insurance policy against an unimaginable tragedy.

My daughter recently enlisted in the US Coast Guard so, now my news feed has many military stories.  I got a good laugh out of the story about the picture above.  

Apparently, the Navy posted the photo above to their social media accounts and many people quickly noticed that the rifle scope is mounted backwards.  Imagine looking backwards through binoculars - a little tiny image of his target is all that this guy is seeing as he's shooting.  This would definitely make accuracy a lot more challenging.  I also loved the social media responses posted by the Army and Marines.

To me, it is interesting that there is brass flying toward the camera.  Not only is he pointing the rifle, he's shooting it!  I'm was surprised to learn that this man was relieved of duty due to this incident; I wouldn't think he would be expected to know about small arms.    

Ensure you are trained properly with your equipment and you practice with it!