My old high school wrestling coach started doing a thing with the kids a some years ago where they all show up at his house and shoot. Mostly shotguns at clay targets, but also rolls an old car out for everybody to shoot the piss out of at the end.
Why he doesn't call me to show up every year is a mystery to me. But, I've managed to catch the event twice. Once when I only owned a couple of handguns back in 2001 and this year where I own, well, considerably more stuff to bring along for the kids to try.
Good fun. This year I acted as an RO for almost all of the 3 hours they were doing shotguns. You get some kids that can work a pump gun like it's 2nd nature and the other half don't know which end of the shell goes forward. One of the kids in the second group was very willing to take instruction and I got a kid that that started out fumbling to load a single shell into any shotgun actually looking competent at dropping one in the ejection port of an 870, locking it up, stuffing another in the mag and getting it to his shoulder without looking like a monkey humping a football.
Another kid, a little Asian 6th grader that couldn't weigh more than 80lbs and only had one hand was there. Left hand was pretty much a club. They pulled out a shooting bench for him to try hitting some clays, but that didn't work too well. Anybody that's tried shooting trap can probably imagine the difficulty. But, he stuck around, looking a little dejected.
So, while the other 20-25 kids were shooting the piss out of the car with shotguns and a couple .22LR rifles I snagged him, told him I had a gun he could handle just fine, pulled out my AR-15 and put him on the line in a kneeling position, supporting the rifle with his half-hand, and he had no problem ripping off some shots. He had a pretty big grin on his face when he was done. It probably helped that damned near every other kid on the line stopped shooting once he started, all trying to figure out who and what was making all that noise. Surplus M855 barks quite a bit out of a 16" barrel.
Now, we all know that .223/5.56 isn't much of a round, but to a kid that's a friggen military gun, and it makes a lot of noise, so it's cool to shoot, and being able to do it without getting your ass knocked around just feels awesome. Especially when you're the tiny guy with one hand.
So I felt pretty good about letting him do that. Kid surprised me, too. Generally folks are worried about recoil if they're not shooters and you hand them an AR or any rifle. I was prepared to talk him into try it but I didn't need to. He dove right on in, no questions asked.
And once he was done shooting the other kids realized that the random dude they don't know who showed up with an AR, an AK, and a backpack full of ammo didn't bring it for HIM to shoot... well, we had some fun. The kid I got moderately competent on an 870 was pretty much always asking for another mag to either gun whenever it wasn't being used, which I was certainly OK with me. His dad was there and they both thanked me when we all packed up. I think the dad was smiling more than the kid.
Yep, that was fun. Gotta email coach though. Apparently I left a shotgun behind.
