9781422273524

BY DAVID WILSON

MASON CREST PH I L ADELPH I A | MI AMI

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Foreword .................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Hunting . ............................................................... 11 Chapter 2: Marksmanship Competitions ............................ 29 Chapter 3: Recreational Shooting . ...................................... 43 Chapter 4: Shooting Education for Children ...................... 59 Chapter 5: Shooting Education for Adults .......................... 75 Series Glossary of Key Terms ................................................. 88 Further Reading & Internet Resources ................................. 92 Index . ........................................................................................ 94 Author’s Biography ................................................................. 96 Credits . ..................................................................................... 96 K E Y I C O N S T O L O O K F O R Words to Understand: These words, with their easy-to-understand definitions, will increase readers’ understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

It was an honor to be asked to write the foreword for the Gun Country series. Since I’m not a celebrity, and it is unlikely you have ever heard of me, I’d like to tell you a bit about my background and experience as it applies to guns. I am a security, emergency management, and business continuity consultant helping public and private sector organizations to be better prepared to withstand disasters. I help them draft plans, provide training, and conduct exercises to improve their organizations’ preparedness posture. In short, I coach organizations on how to ready their people to handle crises. My career began as a Marine infantryman, armorer, and counterintelligence specialist. I then became a police officer, serving as a SWAT officer, firearms instructor, hostage negotiator, and neighborhood team leader. I’ve worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as an intelligence officer and protective security advisor. I’ve been the chief instructor at a private shooting club. Mixed in there were a few years as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. My knowledge of guns is fairly extensive. I know quite a bit about numerous makes and models of guns, including rifles, pistols, and shotguns. I’ve fired many types and styles of guns from .22 caliber pistols (very small) to 155-millimeter howitzers (so big they need to be towed by a truck). I have a great deal of experience in “use of force,” which is the legal term for the appropriate times and conditions when different types of force can be used by civilians, the military, and law enforcement. I’ve seen close-up what guns can do to a human body. But I am getting ahead of myself. I am what some would consider a late bloomer when it comes to shooting and guns. My

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shooting experience started when I was eighteen at U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Prior to that, the only guns I knew were toys and BB guns. You may have heard it is important to make a good first impression; well, the rifle ranges of Parris Island certainly made a good first impression on me. Boot camp takes about three months. The first month was filled with screaming drill instructors, summer humidity and heat, and what seemed like endless push-ups. Very disorienting and uncomfortable. As the second month of boot camp began, our company marched out to the rifle ranges and the change in atmosphere was remarkable. We began our march at the industrial Mainside part of the base and ended at the pastoral grounds of the ranges. Where Mainside was mostly paved and sandy, the ranges had huge fields of green grass. Where Mainside had quite a bit of traffic and other mechanical noise from steam plants and the like, the ranges were quiet with the sound of birds and the wind blowing through the trees punctuated by the pleasant sound of the crack of rifle fire as Marines practiced their craft. The difference was amazing. That initial experience set a high standard for the rest of my life. The training I received there was exceptional; few would argue the Marines create excellent shooters. Over the next fifteen years I would experience a wide variety of firearms as I became an expert in their operation and maintenance and learned how to employ them to inflict the least damage while accomplishing a mission or in the line of duty. I would not consider myself a “gun nut” or even an enthusiast. I don’t own very many. I don’t get emotional when I’m around them. I look at them as tools, much like a carpenter looks at a hammer. I’m comfortable around them because I know what they can and cannot do. My position on guns is that of a pragmatic advocate. The appropriate gun in the hands of a well-trained person can result

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in the pursuit of a lifelong and engaging sport. It can also be a potent solution to a desperate problem and a powerful deterrent. I believe guns alone are not dangerous. As with many controversial topics, the disagreements often arise from a lack of knowledge and experience coupled with our natural tendency to generalize and oversimplify complex problems. We are better served when we gather information from varied sources and break down the problems into manageable issues. I’m not asking you to agree with me. Based on what I know and what I’ve done, this is how I feel. I will continue to read thoughtful material and talk to people who make a conscientious effort to understand the issues. That’s one of the reasons I appreciate this series as it does a very good job exploring some of the most contentious issues such as assault weapons, the gun economy, and Second Amendment rights. Clients frequently ask me to help them address the threat of an active assailant, commonly referred to as an “active shooter.” The active shooter scenario encompasses so many of the issues surrounding guns. Mental health, gun ownership, concealed carry, and law enforcement response are all part of the conversation although some of my clients seem unaware of the connections. I wish I’d been able to refer them to the Gun Country series to fill some of their knowledge gaps. By reading this foreword and having the series in front of you, you are already ahead of the game. You are on your way to forming your own thoughtful opinion on the topic of guns and the surrounding issues. I admire the good work author David Wilson has done presenting a complicated topic in a fair and straightforward manner. I encourage you to take the time to carefully consume this series regardless of your current position on the topic. Do the activities, follow the video links, and answer the questions at the end of the chapters. Keep an open mind and turn up your critical

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thinking. Ask yourself difficult questions and then actively pursue the answers. By doing these small additional tasks, you will come away with a very good base of knowledge on a complicated subject. If you still have questions, use the information and knowledge from the Gun Country series to drive further research. If you have not already done so, consider visiting a gun show, take a marksmanship class and shoot a pistol if you never have, and talk with law enforcement to gain their perspective. You should also consider talking with emergency room doctors and nurses, teachers, and school administrators for their perspectives as well. To think is not to know. To experience is to know. Use this series as the basis for your experience.

Jeff Murray, MA ASIS Certified Protection Professional Certified Firearms Instructor

Foreword

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Privately owned land is much more popular than publicly owned land for American hunters.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

culling: Forced killing, usually of a predator or prey animal whose population is too high. divert: To redirect, change direction, or adjust movement. recreation: Activities for enjoyment, done in leisure time away from work or school. subsistence: The necessary food needed to keep a person or group alive and healthy.

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Hunting

In a civilized and cultivated country, wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. —Theodore Roosevelt Centuries of tradition have given the United States one of the world’s richest hunting cultures. For many Americans, hunting remains a rite of passage, with a child’s (or adult’s) first successful hunt serving as a major milestone. While firearms are not the sole weapon used for hunting in the United States, there is a strong overlap between shooters and hunters in American society, and many Americans who own guns do so primarily or even solely for the purpose of hunting. A Snapshot of American Hunters A love of the outdoors is an American virtue, and each year over 100 million Americans take to public land (that is, land owned by the national, state, or local government) for recreation , ranging from birdwatching to mountain biking. Hunters account

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for a significant percentage of American wildlife enthusiasts, tallying about 12 million in total, and accounting for a national participation rate of about 4 percent. The average hunter may spend as much as $2,500 per year on this hobby, which covers everything from licensing fees to equipment. Their expenditures provide about $25 billion in total to the American economy, supporting about 700,000 jobs, with about $1.6 billion in hunting revenue annually diverted to specific taxes that fund the maintenance of open spaces throughout the United States. Interestingly, the hunting license itself represents just a fraction of this spending, amounting to an average of less than one billion dollars total, whereas the annual spending on firearms and ammunition for hunting is ten times this figure. Hunting equipment accounts for more expenditure per year than trip-related costs like travel and lodging overall. The approximately 150 million individual hunting trips collectively account for over 180 million days spent hunting— if you were to average this across all Americans (not all of whom hunt), that’s 12 hours per person per year hunting. Hunting is most prominent in three particular parts of the nation: the Great Lakes states, the Great Plains states, and the southern states in the Mississippi watershed, where participation is as high as 8 percent, double that of the national average. The Pacific states and the New England region have the lowest percentage of hunters, at about 2 percent of the total population. Privately owned land is much more popular than publicly owned land for American hunters, with participation rates of 85 percent and 35 percent of all hunters, respectively. (These numbers add up to more than 100 percent because about one-fifth hunt on both.) Hunting in the United States is also extremely divided by gender, with women accounting for just 10 percent of all hunters, and just 1 percent of women in the country overall report enjoying hunting. Even so, the fastest-growing market in

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The fastest-growing market in the American shooting industry is teenage girls.

the American shooting industry is teenage girls. It’s also quite divided by race, with whites accounting for a staggering 97 percent of all hunters. Big game hunting accounts for the majority of all hunting in the United States. While the term “big game hunting” itself might evoke ideas of African safaris and hunting lions or elephants, “big game” in the United States primarily refers to deer. Deer hunts account for at least half of all hunts in the United States, but other popular big game species include elk, bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, feral hogs, and moose. Some American hunters can also get the permission needed to hunt cougars, wolves, alligators, and even grizzly bears. These huge animals do not

Chapter 1: Hunting

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necessarily require firearms to be hunted (look no further than a Google search of hunters who use crossbows, reflex bows, or even spears), but most American hunters rely on high-powered rifles to deliver a killing blow from over a thousand feet away. Small game animals, like hare, raccoon, beaver, coyote, and even rattlesnake are also popular hunting targets, as are migratory birds, together accounting for about a third of all hunting trips. (Hunting small game requires its own license in most states.) Migratory bird hunting, most commonly associated with ducks that travel throughout the American waterlands, are also a major source of total hunting days and revenues, with about 2.4 million bird hunters throughout the country. Hunters and Guns: Firepower in the Woods Depending on where you are and what you’re hunting, you may not need to use a powerful gun to hit your target; data from Wisconsin hunters between the 2014 and 2017 seasons suggest

The Great Bowhead Whale Hunt

The only Americans who are legally allowed to hunt and kill whales are those who live in the far northern regions of Alaska: native tribes like the Eskimo or Inuit who rely on subsistence hunting for virtually all of their food. They target bowhead whales, and a successful whale hunt can provide a village with enough food for an entire year. What’s more, whale skin provides native peoples with vital Vitamin C, which is otherwise nearly impossible to get in the Arctic, where no fruit trees grow.

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