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Thank you, brother and sister geezers, for easing \u2013 and validating\u2014my transition into that eighth decade!<\/p>\n
There was lots of gray hair in this particular class.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
So, here I am in my eighth decade.\u00a0 (Yeah, OK, 70 years old\u2026but \u201ceighth decade\u201d sounds more pitiful somehow, and will hopefully make women pity me, and console me more than they do…)<\/p>\n
Just finished my last class of my seventh decade, in Idaho hosted by Andy Kemp and Bob Houzenga of MTG (Midwest Training Group, midwesttraininggroup.net) and Bob Smith of SAFE (Security Awareness and Firearms Training in Fernan, ID).\u00a0 It was 40 hours of \u201cfun in the sun,\u201d and lots of classroom time in our MAG-40 Armed Citizens Rules of Engagement course.<\/p>\n
For a change, yours truly wasn\u2019t the oldest person there.\u00a0 Lots of retirees on board.\u00a0 We are in a time when the anti-gunners are turning to age limits. No rifles or shotguns for 18- to 21-year-olds, they demand, and they\u2019re hinting at taking firearms away from old folks so they don\u2019t suddenly go homicidally senile and kill everyone around them.<\/p>\n
Well, guess what? The old farts did pretty darn well.<\/p>\n
We had over 20% female attendance, including more than a couple of grandmothers.\u00a0 Top shot among those ladies was a willowy 72-year-old who not only outshot all the other women including the more \u201cbuff and tuff\u201d ones, but most of the men present: her 295 out of 300 put her solidly in the top five of the couple dozen students. She did it with a full-size Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm \u201cpolice service pistol\u201d too, not some stereotypical \u201ccute little ladies\u2019 gun.\u201d\u00a0 With 28 people shooting the sixty-shot qualification course including the five staff members in a \u201cpace-setter\u201d demonstration, the single highest score was fired by a gray-whiskered old goat with a compact SIG 9mm.\u00a0 \u201cMost Improved Shooter,\u201d by majority vote of the training staff, went to a silver-haired senior citizen who was running what may have been the toughest gun to shoot on the firing line that day: a little Ruger LC9 9mm.\u00a0 That\u2019s a short barrel pistol weighing barely over a pound fully loaded, but which has a double-action-only trigger pull that requires several pounds of pressure per shot.\u00a0 He finished with a 95% score.<\/p>\n
Lessons?<\/p>\n
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Thank you, brother and sister geezers, for easing \u2013 and validating\u2014my transition into that eighth decade!<\/p>\n
There was lots of gray hair in this particular class.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
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