All guns are good for is to kill people...

[The Heretic]

Uh huh.

Notice that he comes from an anti-gun family and an anti-gun state - so this is not some kid brainwashed by "gun-happy" American culture.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/07/20/top_caliber/?page=full

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2008/07/18/mag20profA1__1216411011_4065.jpg

By SHIRA SPRINGER
July 20, 2008
Stephen Scherer fired his final shot at the Olympic trials in March, lowered his rifle, and smiled. There was no fist pumping, no chest thumping when he won the 10-meter air rifle competition and a berth on the US Olympic team bound for Beijing. Just a shy, slightly self-conscious smile. It was the first and only emotion Scherer showed during three pressure-packed days in Colorado Springs. He was as composed in victory as he had been throughout the best shooting performance of his life. Or perhaps he was in shock. Scherer had had no expectation of making the Olympic team, not as a 19-year-old with a lot still to learn about the sport. He figured the Olympic trials would offer good preparation for representing West Point - where he is going to be a sophomore - at the NCAA riflery championships a couple of weeks later.

"I probably surprised myself more than anybody else there," says Scherer. "Shooting is a very mental sport. A lot of times, it doesn't sink in that you've won until after, because you're so concentrated on the shooting."

Competing against a 2004 Olympic gold medalist and a two-time Olympic team member, Scherer consistently put up high scores. Out of a perfect 600, he posted 595, 597, and 594 in the daily matches (each competitor gets 60 shots and a bull's-eye is worth 10 points). And each day, Scherer advanced to a bonus round with the opportunity to increase his point totals. His consistency silenced whispers about the teenager being more lucky than skilled at hitting a dime-sized spot on a target 10 meters away; the higher the stakes, the better he performed. "I still can't figure out how he held it all together," says Scherer's West Point coach, Major Ron Wigger. "The mental aspect is learned over time. You just don't go to the Olympics. He was a total dark horse."

Not bad for a teenager from Billerica who professes a love of all things Army and his admiration for Jimi Hendrix in the same breath. And whose mother didn't even want him to have a squirt gun as a boy.

"I was very anti-gun when my kids were little," says Scherer's mother, Sue, who works a number of different jobs, including cleaning and painting houses, running a day care, and organizing Jeopardy!-style entertainment for nursing homes. "I always thought, `Guns are bad. Guns kill people.' So, I didn't want my kids to have anything to do with guns."

Sue eventually softened her stance and bought Stephen and his younger sister, Sarah, toy water guns shaped like elephants. But Stephen wanted more. He made complicated pistols with Legos. He played endlessly with a BB gun inherited from a friend. Talking about his early interest in shooting, Stephen now says, "It's sort of like, if it's wrong, you want to do it more." When he spotted a sign for the Massachusetts Rifle Association on the side of the road in Woburn, he copied down the phone number and called. The junior program cost $1 with equipment provided. Sue figured proper training at a shooting range was better than Stephen's firing his BB gun down the hallway of their home into a trap.

Stephen enrolled in the program at 11, and his sister followed. (Sarah, who is now 17, narrowly missed a spot on the Olympic air rifle team.) While Sue jokes that a distant relation to Daniel Boone played a part in the family's quick ascent through the national shooting ranks, Sarah says, "The only reason we're as good as this is because we've had each other."

The Massachusetts Rifle Association facility in Woburn has become a second home for the Scherers. On a sweltering summer day, it is too hot to practice in heavy leather and canvas shooting coats. So, wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and jeans, Scherer positions the psychedelic-blue stock of his air rifle - a precision firearm nothing like the BB gun he played with as a kid - high across his chest to demonstrate a shooter's stance. At 6 feet and 150 pounds, Scherer is taller and thinner than most of his competition. In many other sports, his wiry frame would be an advantage. In air rifle, it makes it difficult to find a stable shooting position. He works to keep his body as relaxed and still as possible, his breathing and heart rate steady and under control. The slightest unplanned movement can mean failure in a sport that rewards perfection.

Olympic shooting includes rifle, pistol, and shotgun events. Air rifle is Scherer's best event, but he also competes in small-bore rifle events for West Point. Much like track, shooters compete in different events at different competitions.

As children of a single mother who struggled to make ends meet, Stephen and his sister see the sport differently than other elite athletes. "I learned how to work your way through life and realized how hard life actually is. Shooting is a privilege and you should have fun with it," Stephen says. "For us, shooting is a part of who we are. It's not what we are."

The Scherers are a close-knit, religious family. They attend Park Street Church in Boston and during the school year go to services at a small chapel at West Point many weekends; they say grace before meals. The three talk and laugh among themselves like best friends. They are bonded by years of home schooling and financial hardship. Sometimes they couldn't make it from paycheck to paycheck. With competitive shooting start-up costs averaging $5,000, the family lived "very cheaply" in order to participate, Sue says, and last year, the Scherers couldn't attend nationals because they didn't have enough money.

"We don't think of it as tough," says Sue. "We just think, `OK, this is the next thing we need. When we have money, we'll get it.' " Unfailingly positive, Sue believes family hardships helped make her son an Olympian much earlier than anyone expected. "He doesn't get nervous in pressure situations," she says. That should come in handy next month in Beijing.

 

[Odd_ball]

Guns are fun.

There, I said it.

With proper respect and training, they are basically less dangerous than many other fun activities. People race cars. Legally and with great safety measures nowdays. People jump out of airplanes. Shooting a gun is taking your life in your own hands, and respecting and abiding by the manufacturer's rules and instructions with vigor and knowing it is a powerful tool breeds confidence.

Just like using any power tool, or even hand tools. People have killed themselves accidentally with chainsaws, nailguns, exploding hydraulic lines on equipment, etc. It's all the same, what's next, ban everything that's potentially dangerous?

 

[cyberneticghost]

http://www.biography.com/images/home/320x240/thompson_hunters_320x240.jpg

 

[MechaBlade]

Cars are just for getting from one place to the next.

http://images.stockcarracing.com/featurestories/scrp_0710_02_z+fertile_ground+facility.jpg

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

The National Rifle Association says that, "Guns don't kill people, uh, people do." But I think, the gun helps. You know? I think it helps.
I just think just standing there going, "Bang!" That's not going to kill too many people, is it?
You'd have to be really dodgy on the heart to have that.

-Eddie Izzard

"Everybody's talking about gun control,
got to get rid of the guns.

Fuck that. l like guns.

You got a gun, you don't have to work out.

l ain't working out. l ain't jogging.

You got pecs, l got Tecs.

Fuck that shit.
You don't need no gun control.

You know what you need?
We need some bullet control.

Man, we need to control the bullets,
that's right.

l think all bullets should cost $5,000.

$5,000 for a bullet. You know why?

'Cause if a bullet costs $5,000 there'd be no more innocent bystanders.
That'd be it.

Every time someone gets shot, people will be like, ''Damn, he must have did something.

''Shit, they put $20,000 worth of bullets
in his ass.''

People would think before
they killed somebody, if a bullet cost $5,000.

''Man, l would blow your fucking head off, if l could afford it.

''l'm gonna get me another job, l'm gonna start saving some money...and you're a dead man."
''You better hope l can't get no bullets on layaway.''

So even if you get shot by a stray bullet...
You won't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out.
Whoever shot you would take their bullet back.
''l believe you got my property.''

-Chris Rock

 

[thør]

Uh huh.

Notice that he comes from an anti-gun family and an anti-gun state - so this is not some kid brainwashed by "gun-happy" American culture.

10 meter air rifle is fun to shoot......

I should pull out the Feinwerkbau and play.....

 

[Peregrinator]

Boston area newspaper columnist Mike Barnacle once referred to Billerica as "Somerville with trees."

 

[The Heretic]

10 meter air rifle is fun to shoot......

I should pull out the Feinwerkbau and play.....

I wouldn't mind having a nice air rifle, but I don't have the room to shoot it. I still live in the city and it is illegal to shoot an air rifle inside most cities. If I lived outside the city where I could shoot it then I could also shoot a .22 rifle. I don't have room inside the house to make the range long enough to be interesting.

 

[thør]

I wouldn't mind having a nice air rifle, but I don't have the room to shoot it. I still live in the city and it is illegal to shoot an air rifle inside most cities. If I lived outside the city where I could shoot it then I could also shoot a .22 rifle. I don't have room inside the house to make the range long enough to be interesting.

You can get 5 meter reduced range air rifle targets.......do you have a 20' hallway?

 

[Peregrinator]

You can get 5 meter reduced range air rifle targets.......do you have a 20' hallway?

My wife is going to kill you for this post.

 

[The Heretic]

You can get 5 meter reduced range air rifle targets.......do you have a 20' hallway?

No and that wouldn't be fun - it would be enough of a challenge.

 

[sarah_rsl]

There's something about the male pyche and guns...

Through all my time in the army I never really enjoyed shooting rifles or anything else. Typically you'd fire a few rounds then spend the rest of the day cleaning your rifle or if you were unlucky support weapon.

But the army was always quite strict about the weapon safety cause if you screw up with a weapon it's not going to be you that suffers but the person beside you.

That's why the idea of being allowed to own the type of weaponry in america that you can makes me queasey. How many people get shot just by some loser that can't unload his rifle properly.

Anywho I support the way firearms are so strictly controlled in the UK and the success of gun control is reflected in a low violent crime rate.

 

[thør]

No and that wouldn't be fun - it would be enough of a challenge.

When I shot in competition, air rifle matches were in the standing position, only. Hitting that little dot in the center of the bull was always a challenge.

 

[thør]

My wife is going to kill you for this post.

So, I should bring the Feinwerkbau, some pellets and the trap? You are in charge of the beer.

 

[Bert Notorius]

So, I should bring the Feinwerkbau, some pellets and the trap? You are in charge of the beer.

guns & beer?

 

[thør]

guns & beer?

I see you're a whiskey man......

 

[torchthebitch]

There's something about the male pyche and guns...

Through all my time in the army I never really enjoyed shooting rifles or anything else. Typically you'd fire a few rounds then spend the rest of the day cleaning your rifle or if you were unlucky support weapon.

But the army was always quite strict about the weapon safety cause if you screw up with a weapon it's not going to be you that suffers but the person beside you.

That's why the idea of being allowed to own the type of weaponry in america that you can makes me queasey. How many people get shot just by some loser that can't unload his rifle properly.

Anywho I support the way firearms are so strictly controlled in the UK and the success of gun control is reflected in a low violent crime rate.

*Tea spew*

 

[The Heretic]

There's something about the male pyche and guns...

Did you catch the part where his sister competes too?

 

[sarah_rsl]

Did you catch the part where his sister competes too?

Hey I'm a fairly good shot. It's easier to teach women how to shoot than men. Women will be wary of the weapon and do exactly what they're trained to do while men will start fucking around as soon as they think nobody is looking. Which is why I've never heard of a woman in the army have a negligent discharge with a weapon.

So yeah some women probably do enjoy shooting , but men and guns can make a bad combination.

 

[The Heretic]

Hey I'm a fairly good shot. It's easier to teach women how to shoot than men. Women will be wary of the weapon and do exactly what they're trained to do while men will start fucking around as soon as they think nobody is looking. Which is why I've never heard of a woman in the army have a negligent discharge with a weapon.

So yeah some women probably do enjoy shooting , but men and guns can make a bad combination.

You don't stereotype much - do you?

 

[sarah_rsl]

You don't stereotype much - do you?

I think you should reconsider what I posted, to say men and women react differently to firearms is a justifiable statement. Likewise I stated further opinions on how men and women relate to firearms based on 12 years in the military.

Also my statistic that women are involved in less negligent discharges in western militaries is a fact.

So I articulated an opinion based on personal experience, and fact. If you want to disagree with it , you might want to go point by point. Dismissing it with a stock accussation of sterotyping and a smiley face isn't really an arguement.

 

[KRCummings]

There's something about the male pyche and guns...

Through all my time in the army I never really enjoyed shooting rifles or anything else. Typically you'd fire a few rounds then spend the rest of the day cleaning your rifle or if you were unlucky support weapon.

But the army was always quite strict about the weapon safety cause if you screw up with a weapon it's not going to be you that suffers but the person beside you.

That's why the idea of being allowed to own the type of weaponry in america that you can makes me queasey. How many people get shot just by some loser that can't unload his rifle properly.

Anywho I support the way firearms are so strictly controlled in the UK and the success of gun control is reflected in a low violent crime rate.

I dislike guns. They could go away forever for all I care and I think the majority of gun nuts out there are clueless, paranoid rednecks with small dicks.
That being said, I don't want you on my side of the argument. You're an idiot.

 

[The Heretic]

I dislike guns. They could go away forever for all I care and I think the majority of gun nuts out there are clueless, paranoid rednecks with small dicks.

There you go Sarah. *That's* how to stereotype.

 

[The Heretic]

So I articulated an opinion based on personal experience, and fact. If you want to disagree with it , you might want to go point by point. Dismissing it with a stock accussation of sterotyping and a smiley face isn't really an arguement.

You made a huge leap to a conclusion - one that stereotyped men v. women. Men as dangerous fools, women as careful and considerate.

 

[sarah_rsl]

There you go Sarah. *That's* how to stereotype.

Was he calling me an idiot or you? that's a really charming nickname he's picked isn't it?

Anywho I think its good that he's got access to the internet otherwise he'd just be rocking back and forth muttering to himself.