Halloween approaches. It was my favorite holiday, next to Christmas, when I was a kid.  There’s still a special place for it in my heart.   When I was a (relatively) young dad, it pleased me greatly to take my kids out trick or treating and stand in the dark autumn night behind them and watch the fun.

Over the last several years, I’ve noticed the emergence of Halloween shoots at local gun clubs. They turn out to be big fun, too.

Some clubs have pumpkin shoots.  Blow hell outa those pulpy orange things. Its lotsa fun when you’re doing it… though it will never be any fun to clean up after.

Back in the ‘90s, a gun club I belonged to in New Hampshire had a Halloween pistol match every year. The targets were bowling pins on tables…and you had to shoot in costume.  Folks had fun with it. There were coneheads.  There were vampires.  There were witches.  One of my daughters went as a cowgirl, complete with Buscadero gun belt and a really-for-real .45 in her holster, which she used to decimate the pins.

One year I dressed up with a vampire cape and a sharkskin gun belt and holster…yes, I went as an attorney.

Early this month, I was in California teaching a class when the host club’s IDPA chapter (International Defensive Pistol Association) had a Halloween-themed match.  I was stuck lecturing in a classroom (AAUUGGHH!!) while everyone else had fun with stuff like:

There’s a witch target flying across the range on her broomstick, courtesy of the moving target apparatus.

And… you have to nail the first few targets, then reload with “your special silver bullets” to engage a werewolf, all while the clock is running.

And of course, it would take a whole separate blog entry to discuss the currently trendy zombie element…

In our country, Halloween has evolved into a time for fun.  It pleases me to see that this has come to encompass the shooting sports.

What’s you folks’ take on it?

1 COMMENT

  1. Allow me to give the South Florida take 🙂

    TSSA’s ZOMBIE SHOOT!
    TEOTWAWKI
    Yes, Shooters It’s that time…
    That time when bad things will start happening
    Things, that can only be stopped, with guns !!!
    Three GUNS in fact….…
    SAT, October 29, 2011
    is when it all goes to hell….

    Please be at Markham Park by 8:30 in the Morning
    so you can be a part of trying to STOP—
    TEOTWAWKI

    There may be Monsters – there may be terrorists & Ghouls – Goblins – VAMPIRES — Zombies & aliens

    We just don’t know…. so bring your rifle, shotgun, & Pistol, And lots of ammo for them all.

    It is Halloween…

    ZOMBIE HUNTERS: “We make Dead things DEADER.”

    “When monster have nightmares, they dream of us.”
    M.H.I. Employee Handbook

    Round Count: 150 for rifle, 150 for pistol, Shotgun 50 rounds bird, 10 buck, 10 slug.

    We take Halloween seriously hehehehe

  2. It’s a fun time of year! I did feel the need to post a special notice to my readers at Rockwell Arms and GunSafes that zombie hunting season is closed from Oct. 15 to the first of November.

  4. @Miguel

    YES! Monster Hunter International reference! Bought the first two books in the series, and guess who alerted me to their existence? Massad Ayoob, on this very blog. 😀 Gonna buy the third, soon. Unfortunately for folks in my area of NC, there are no big zombie shoots within an hour’s drive that I know of.

    “Evil looms. Cowboy up. Kill it. Get paid.” – MHI mission statement.

  5. I personally do not celebrate halloween, but wouldn’t begrudge anyone their fun. The halloween themed matches do sound like a great time to get together, shoot guns, and have fun, which often seems missing lately.

  7. Mas, what you describe sounds like ghoulish clean fun. But I am interested in your opinion of Hornady’s introduction (just in time for Halloween) of the Zombie Max ammunition. Most shooters I have talked to think the idea is a hoot, but I am concerned by how the Dark Side might use this as an example of irresponsibility on the part of the “gun community”. I would not be surprised if one of our liberal news agencies didn’t run with this one. Somewhere, somehow within the description of potential mayhem would be a reference to “the poor children” who might be permanently debilitated simply by exposure to the sight of a box of this stuff. I also wonder how much fun a prosecutor would have interrogating a poor schlub who rightfully defended himself with “zombie ammo”. What do you think?

  8. In ’72 I was fresh out of the swamps and my sisters persuaded me to attend a halloween party bash that had sprung up on a regular basis during the six years I’d been gone. It was a real hum-dinger for those days, fore runner of the mayhem that goes on now.
    Long story short…
    We were wandering lost in a room lit by one bulb high overhead. Cobwebs and groaning noises, squeaky doors and cool damp breezes blowing through the room. And shouts of terror from girls.
    Someone leapt from hiding at our group… he was nearly killed when he ran into my autonomous responding attack.
    I’ve never celebrated any kind of halloween activity since.
    Jim

  9. I have seen Halloween matches a few times. Always had fun. This year my club promises a haunted hayride stage where you engage targets as you pass by in a hay wagon. It is of course a night match (non-sanctioned).

    A great tradition and much less likely to cause consternation than that XMAS match where you have to engage reindeer shaped steel!

  10. Roger, I see the new Hornady Zombie Loads as conversation pieces, not self-defense ammo. Probably wouldn’t feed into an accusation of premeditation, unless you killed an Obama campaign worker with it…

  11. JSW, I had the same thing when I went with girlfriend and several friends. After he picked himself up and got a couple of buddies, he yelled at me, from a distance of about a block, to not come back. Not celebrating Halloween is better for us, since we don’t have children.

  12. I dig halloween most for the zombie discussions. We have had a lot of fun the last two weeks watching THE WALKING DEAD on AMC and the pretty much lack of anything resembling training and tactics for the characters in the show.

    I look at it this way, zombies are just a replacement for the Goblin of Jeff Cooper fame. If you can beat a zombie you can most assuredly have a good chance to best a “goblin.” It’s all just a question of paying attention to your surroundings, effective use of weapons and so on.

    its also good practice to teach someone how to pick up an impact weapon to fight off a goblin with if you have no gun. Think “head wound.”

  13. Anyone notice how all the knives and machetes seem to be Gerbers? Looks like the bear gryls machete and the bear gryls axe/hatchet/ machete thing. In fact, I saw Gerber Gear mentioned in the credits for the show, so they much send a pile of knives.

  14. Don’t forget the Kabar Zombie War sword and other Zombie blades. Bright ghoulish green handles and very nice sheaths with toxic-green paracord.
    While my kids are 40 yo, we always decorate the house with bats, ghosts and play scary sounds CD. The little trick or treaters love it!
    No local Halloween shoots though, darn.