This weekend my son and I competed in the Utah USPSA Practical Shooting state championship.
This was our first big, “sanctioned” match. We’d been steadily progressing in local club matches and felt the next step was to try a “big” match.
Put succinctly… we were schooled. Imagine acing a local 3 par golf course and then going to Oakmont the week before the US Open. Sand traps, tricky greens, & 12 inch rough expose any weakness. And that is what the state level stages did to us.
Complex, tricky stages with lots of new types of targets we hadn’t seen before ate our lunch. Some stages were so large or complex that we had trouble remembering our plans past their first half. We didn’t shoot targets, we missed others, we had to backtrack to shoot targets we’d forgotten. Ugly!
Four stages in found us disconsolate with a “why are we here” attitude? Then casting worry aside, we just said “to heck with planning, lets just run like heck and shoot fast” and see what happens. And that worked.
Brian was the only Junior, so he got a nice trophy. He held up well under the stress of the tough stages. Equipment issues hit him on the first stage, giving him a zero. Except for that first disastrous stage, he placed in the middle of the pack and even beat Dad on two stages. Not bad for 12 years old!
I pulled myself up on the last four stages, even making the top 10 scores on one stage, and actually ended up being the Top new shooter – beating about 20 others in that category.
We met lots of very nice and helpful people who didn’t mind at all that we were struggling. So we look forward to doing it again next year.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Congratulations to both of you.
Guess you were probably too busy to watch the local news this weekend. A young couple with permits to carry stopped at a gas station. Left their guns in the car. When the hubby opened the door for the wife, the gun fell out on the tarmac and went off. The wife got hit and died. The local cops showed the gun with a safety thing that won’t let it fire unless you pull the trigger.
Please tell me that you and Paula don’t leave your guns laying on the seat and that you DO use that safety thingy.
Goodness you guys give me so much to worry about.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I only carry/own pistols with drop safeties. To me it is like only having cars with dual or more airbags. These are internal safeties that physically block the cartridge from the firing pin. You can slam them onto the ground as hard as you want and they won’t go off. In terms of general gun safety, all guns are locked in a vault, or if a pistol, in a pistol safe. If I have to leave a gun in the car, like when I go to the hospital, it is locked there as well.
When we go to a competitions, our guns are in cases and aren’t touched except at designated safe areas at the range or on the firing line under supervision of a range officer trained to watch only the gun as we run a stage.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Sorry, a simple yes or no would have done the job. But, I guess I knew that you would be careful but 12 year olds, even Brian, can be careless. Hope I didn’t offend you.
How was the trip to Logan? Guess Sardine Canyon was pretty. I drove the skyline drive yesterday and it was breathtaking. Tomorrow, Mt Nebo Bypass.
Then retire Taurus til spring.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Safety is important. I don’t mind explaining how we achieve it.
Sardine Canyon wasn’t yet in full bloom yet. Another couple weeks.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Gun fired when it hit the ground? And happened to be pointing right at the wife? How convenient. I know of few modern guns that will discharge from a short fall like that. Is anyone buying this story?
Are the idiot police on the news now suggesting that you carry a self defense weapon with a device that makes it inoperable? I’m not putting anything on my weapon that the manufacturer didn’t intend to be there.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:42 am
It was on the local news. Happened in front of the 7-11 in Springville. Yes, the idiot police are saying to use a gun that has a safety built in. They are not suggesting, the idiot police, that you add something to the gun. Apparently, it should already be there. And, since I saw the pictures of the dead woman on a gurney, covered with a sheet, and a demonstration of the part that was apparently missing on the woman’s gun, I am buying this story. I seriously doubt that KSL would make up the story and have someone lay down on a gurney and pretend to be dead. If you want to think it can’t happen, then feel free to think that the police in Utah are idiots or liars. Guess the police in CA wouldn’t let the incident get to the tv since they are all brilliant, well educated, careful…………. bah, they are on the TV more often that Utah. I guess, I have yet to see Utah cops on Fox news but CA sure show pretty often.
September 29th, 2009 at 9:06 am
I have no doubt she is dead, I just doubt the husband’s story. And maybe the police are playing along with it while they put together a case against him.
As to the idiot police- yes they are always coming up with a bunch of anti-gun nonsense that real gun people just shake their heads in wonderment at. Its not a Utah thing, LASD and LAPD put out the same anti-gun crap all the time.
KSL didn’t make up the story- they repeated whatever the cops told them. But I hope you aren’t suggesting the media does not have an anti-gun agenda.