So what did YOU do at camp this summer?

It's been a busy week for me and the gals.  A couple of years back some of our fellow 4H Shooting Sports instructors and advisers, Bruce and Cindy, organized and offered a summer Shooting Sports Safety Camp with the assistance of our local gun club, a Friends of the NRA grant, and help from others including some dedicated club members and some fellow instructors, plus the wife and I.

It's a four-day long, day-camp for forty kids between the ages of eight and eighteen.  It includes many of our 4H Shooting Sports kids and others who are interested in learning about gun safety and shooting.  They have the opportunity to choose two tracks for the week... shotgun or pistol/archery.  We have skills levels ranging from never touched a gun to holy smokes, that kid just went twenty-five for twenty-five in that round of skeet.

The shotgun folks get to learn gun safety, all about shotguns, skeet, trap, and five-stand. On day three, we mix it up a bit and run all the kids through some archery and some cowboy action shooting on the cowboy action range where they get some pistol, rifle, and shotgun time.

Between club guns, kids' guns, and instructors' guns.... there was quite a collection of shotguns on hand for the week.  There was even a reloading and muzzle-loading demonstration.

Pistol and archery kids spent time learning pistol shooting with semi-autos and revolvers in the morning, then they moved to the archery range in the afternoon.  Yep, those are my Five Bucks: Balloon Dueling Trees in the background there.  It was a hot week, and forty kids plus another dozen or more instructors and help sure enjoyed the cooking for lunch each day.  A few watermelons skipped dessert and ended up in a lethal force demonstration too.

And every night there were a lot of semi-autos and revolvers and rifles and shotguns to clean and service.  I bet you can guess what I'm doing tonight.

The week ended today with awards, certificates, and some refrigerator art from the range.  A big thank you goes out to the Clinton County Farmers and Sportsmen Association for hosting the camp and to all the organizers, instructors, and helpers including Bruce, Cindy, Grant, Steve, Jeff, Judi, Britney, Todd, Jack, Richard, Butch, Kaitlin, Beth, Dave, and especially Rick who volunteers many hours fixing, mowing, and keeping the club and ranges in top shape year 'round.

I hope summer is beginning well for all you folks... but nothing is better than seeing smiles on the faces of kids safely shooting guns and... they all have a terrific answer to the inevitable question... So, what did YOU do at camp this summer?

PS: Don't tell the anti-gunners, but I've now instructed or assisted in instructing over one-hundred and fifty youth just this year so far and I can't imagine any of them buying into the anti-gun lies and rhetoric as the years go by.