Some of the people I had the great fortune of meeting at the LuckyGunner.com Blogger Shoot a coupe of weeks ago was Jennifer, who writes the blog In Jennifer’s Head, and her husband Evyl Robot Michael.

Yesterday, Jennifer asked in her blog for her readers to tell us her story – how did we get into the gun world? This prompted over 50 stories of how they started shooting. I even posted a link to my story, my first real blog post 3 months ago.

Many people who posted linked to their own blogs, and their comments sections had people posting how they got started. I didn’t count them all but there’s a lot.

One of the things that I noticed was a lot of the posts, maybe a third, represented what is becoming know as Gun Culture 2.0. I first heard this phrase used by Michael Bane, and it means those whose entry into shooting deviates from the traditional, established route of gun ownership. Traditionally people were around shooting all their life. Shooting was passed down from parents and grandparents, or perhaps learned in Scouts or 4H. There are also those who took up shooting in the military.

Gun Culture 2.0 are those like me who took up shooting because of a concern for personal protection. I even noted that several people mentioned Hurricane Katrina as a driving force in their decision. It was not a family tradition, and in some cases, people bought their first gun despite a family tradition of anti-gun attitudes.

Welcome to the fold, fellow members of Gun Culture 2.0. I look forward to meeting you!

Here is the subject of the next Scare Email that is going to show up in your inbox soon: another proposed UN small arms treaty. According to Larry Bell writing in an Op/Ed for Forbes Magazine, this treaty would

1. Enact tougher licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for legal firearms ownership.

2. Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (exempting those owned by our government of course).

3. Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons (any that have magazines even though they still operate in the same one trigger pull – one single “bang” manner as revolvers, a simple fact the ant-gun media never seem to grasp).

4. Create an international gun registry, clearly setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.

5. In short, overriding our national sovereignty, and in the process, providing license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.

Obviously these terms an unacceptable. Does such a treaty present a threat to our Second Amendment freedoms here in the United States? In my opinion, yes, and no.

Any research will show that the issue of whether treaties trump the US Constitution is divided. Personally, I believe they do not. However, I choose not to have to rely on some future Supreme Court to decide the issue, when to me, the best course of action is to prevent ratification of the treaty by the Senate, and, if possible, its presentation to the Senate in the first place.

Treaties are presented by the President to the Congress, and ratified by two thirds of the Senate. The current Senate is unlikely to vote for such a treaty. Despite the vocal exceptions like Schumer and Feinstein, the majority of the Senate remains pro-Second Amendment. This is logical, because the majority of the American people are pro-Second Amendment, outside of the areas represented by the obvious anti-freedom members.

It is up to us to contact our Senators and make sure they understand what is happening, and we let them know where we stand. I know that both of my Senators in Georgia, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, are staunchly pro-Second Amendment, but I am writing them about this any way.

Despite the fact that the House of Representatives does not vote on treaty ratification, they almost certainly will have their say. I also plan to write my Congressman, Dr. Phil Gingrey. I will report the responses of my representatives here as they arrive.

Of course, the President presents any treaty to the Senate for ratification, so the opportunity is there to affect this, provided the treaty can be delayed until after the next inauguration in January 2013. The need to elect a President that reflects the love of freedom shared by the rest of the country could not be greater.

I believe if we act now and maintain contact with our Senators on this issue, we can hold off this threat. But it won’t be the last. That’s okay. This is part of the “eternal vigilence” that is required of us.

On Memorial Day I shot the Pistol Steel Challenge match at the Creekside Firing Range in Taylorsville, Georgia. This was part of a series of matches that weekend to raise money for the local family of a fallen warrior. In addition to the pistol match, there was a shotgun match, a service rifle match, and a tactical rifle match.

In the pistol match there were 35 shooters, and they had expected about 15, like the match earlier in the month. So, this made the 5 stage match last till about 2 PM, when they expected to be done by noon. I had plenty of other things planned for the day, so I didn’t stay around through the auction to find out the results.

Well, I just downloaded the results and found that I finished 12th out of the 35 shooters. Not bad considering I left steel standing after the par time expired on 2 stages. But so did most of the shooters – it was not an easy match.

Looking at the results of all the matches, I took away some interesting facts:

* In the shotgun match, overall was won by a pump gun.

* In the the tactical rifle match, overall was won by a shooter using iron sights, versus optics. In fact, all the iron sights shooters finished in the top half overall.

The lesson, of course, is that an auto shotgun or optics on your rifle do not necessarily make you a better shooter. Training and practice make you a better shooter. If you add optics to your rifle, trying to compensate for poor technique, all you have done is ensure you will shoot poorly with more expensive equipment.

By the way, that’s why I shoot Production in USPSA. If I’m going to shoot poorly I want to do it cheaply, too.

First impressions are essential, in shooting probably more than in a lot of other things.

Bringing new shooters into the gun fold is the only chance we have to keep our sport and our rights alive. But if we set them up for failure, we are working against ourselves.

When you take someone to shoot for the first time, please use a gentle caliber like .22, and please let them dry fire a number of times, with you watching, so you can be sure they won’t be hurt by the real thing. Then work them up to a full power caliber only as the demonstrate both the skill to handle it, and the desire. When you take the time to do that, you might just find you have created a life long ally.

I ran across this video on EveryDayNoDaysOff, full of negligent discharges, scope kisses, and other gun mishaps. Some are accompanied by laughter from the companions of the shooters, which seems to tell me that the shooters were set up for failure. Many of them are people who are obviously shooting for the first time, either a certain gun, or for the first time altogether.

So, when you watch this video, note both the Negligent Discharges for their safety teaching value, and the first time shooters, for their lesson.