Last weekend, our Guns Save Life Defense Training crew had a unique opportunity to grow America’s gun culture beyond the students enrolled. One student, a public school teacher, brought her well-behaved 8-year-old daughter along to the class. The young lady even spent some time behind the rangemaster, watching her mom and a gaggle of other students firing their first shots with great interest.

We noticed her interest in guns and shooting, along with how well she listened and behaved. Toward the end of the day Saturday, our instructor team must have been reading from the same hymnal. Even before I’d asked mom if we could let Ruby Jean do some shooting while the students were in a lecture segment, others had already asked mom about letting the little girl shoot. Mom enthusiastically gave her blessing and consent – along with her precious little girl.

Ten minutes later, we had Ruby Jean all set up and started with a quick review of the gun safety rules and how to make a little Ruger Wrangler cowboy-style single-action pistol go bang.

While she understood the “Keep your muzzle pointed in a safe direction” right out of the gate, the “Keep your finger off the trigger” part of things took a couple of minutes, but Ruby Jean proved herself a quick learner.

Things quickly came together. Minutes later, we had her almost ready to fire her first shot.

And then she got her chance. BANG! Nothing but smiles. As you might imagine, she was pretty stoked after firing her first shot with the tame-shooting Wrangler with .22 target loads. And we gave her a souvenir – the spent shell case from that first shot. A priceless memento she can carry with her forever if she chooses.

It didn’t stop there. Ruby spent the better part of an hour shooting.

Then Sunday, while mom sat in on a deadly force lecture, we had Ruby Jean back out shooting a Savage Rascal rifle and more trigger time with the Wrangler.  Only this time, she barked commands at the target before firing.

“Get out of my house!” BANG!

“Get back!”  BANG!

The precocious little girl had soaked up more than we thought at the home defense lecture segment and in the range segments. She had learned all about the role of guns in self-defense both in the home and for personal defense.

We created a very happy little girl who will remember this past weekend for many years if not the rest of her life. Welcome to the gun culture Ruby Jean.

Great job to our instructors Nick and Rosie for their great work growing America’s gun culture one infectious smile at a time.