I'm not going to waste my time, and precious electrons, explaining to you why the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is so important. Some of you already know. Most of you don't, and won't until something happens to you or those you care about that convinces you far more effectively than I ever could. No, never mind that old argument. Anyway, it reminds me of the joke about the prisoners and their numbered jokes. You know - about all they have to do is tell each other jokes, and they have told each other the same jokes so many times that they don't bother actually telling the jokes anymore. They have all the jokes numbered, and they just say a number. Then the rest of the prisoners laugh at the joke as if it has actually been retold. When a new prisoner learns of this, he learns the numbers and then says, "Seven." But no one laughs. When he asks another prisoner why, the other prisoner says, "Some people just can't tell a joke." The arguments about guns and the keeping and bearing of same are like that: anyone involved in the argument learns all the arguments and counter-arguments and understands that there is nothing new in any of it. So I won't bother. I won't even say the numbers.
The thing that people who don't shoot guns don't know about is that it is fun. Yes, really. Shooting guns is fun. I am, of course, talking about shooting guns for purposes other than self-defense, or righteous revolution, or the common defense, the three reasons the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wisely included the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution. Those uses are all-important, but cannot possibly be fun. No, what I'm talking about is target shooting.
There are many different forms target shooting can take. They include many activities, from casual shooting of tin cans with a .22 (called "plinking") to serious target shooting, where your shooting is scored and the best shooters actually win something, perhaps a trophy or money. I have done plenty of both, and let me assure you: serious target shooting is where the real "juice" is. Going out with some friends to plink at tin cans with your .22s is fun, but it palls into insignificance compared to serious target shooting. When your performance is measured, and compared with that of all the other shooters, the sensations are almost indescribable - but I'll try anyway - see below. You can achieve success or failure, based upon how well you shoot compared to how well you know you can shoot. And you can achieve success or failure based on on how well you shoot compared to how well your competitors shoot. You can shoot very well, based on your previous performances, and still get soundly beaten by your competitors. You can shoot well, but not at your very highest capabilities, and still manage to win.
There are many forms of target shooting available. Long range rifle shooting mostly concentrates on accuracy alone. The various pistol competitions usually combine accuracy, speed, and movement. Cowboy action shooting combines speed, movement, short range rifle shooting, even shorter range pistol shooting, and shotgun shooting, mostly at fixed targets. In Cowboy Action Shooting, the targets are easy to hit and speed is almost always the deciding factor. And in Cowboy Action Shooting you have to dress up in period clothing and shoot old-fashioned guns like single action sixguns and lever action rifles. Shotgun target shooting is almost always at flying targets. That's the only kind of competitive shooting I have ever done, because that's the only kind of competitive shooting done within easy driving distance of where I live.
The shotgun shooting I do is called Trap Shooting. A machine throws little disks into the air and you have a second or less to shoot each one. An event usually consists of shooting at 100 such targets. You have to hit almost all of them to have any chance of winning. I'm not really a good enough shooter to win except on those rare occasions when I'm shooting at my very best. The thing is, you pay money to compete, and the winner wins some kind of prize, which might be money, a belt buckle, a coin, or some such thing. I have actually won a few events, and let me tell you, winning, against other highly skilled competitors, is a real hoot. Sure, you can go out and shoot tin cans. You hit one, miss one, hit another. BFD. (You DO know what that means, right?) But when you shoot competitively, and you somehow manage to win, even at a small event like the ones I usually enter, the "thrill of victory" is real. You pay your money, you shoot against people who can really shoot, and you take the prize. That is fun, serious fun - gut wrenching, spine tingling, mind bending fun. The occasional wins are well worth the vastly more numerous losses, because even when you lose, you're out shooting guns. And shooting guns is fun.
Back to my home place.