Thursday, June 7, 2012

Little ole me..on the NRA Blog!

Admittedly, I was pretty psyched when I got the notification that @NRABlog.com was now following me on Twitter! (Sweet!) But when I got a direct message asking if they could post my blog about becoming an NRA Certified Pistol Instructor, I did a double take! Who me? Ummm...YEAH!

About two hours later I received a message back, saying it was done. My little blog, with all of 6 posts..out there for the world to see. I guess that's the beauty of social media..one second you're anonymous, the next the world is looking at your picture.

I started my little blog as a sort of experiment. I wrote a few pieces that had been published on another blog (Girls Guide to Guns) and I posted a few on one of the firearms forums I belong to (www.gunfolks.com). But I wanted somewhere to keep them all in one place. I tried to come up with a creative name for my blog, and after the third try, I settled on WeShoot2. Because we do!

Other than starting a Twitter account under the same name as the blog (@WeShoot2) I didn't do anything to promote the blog. Heck, I think I only tweeted two of my pieces on that twitter account. I really didn't care if anyone read my writings, and frankly, I didn't think anyone would be interested in it..oddly enough, I'm still not sure but it was kind of fun to take things out of my mind and put it out there for people to see.

As a female firearms enthusiast, I'm constantly reminded that it's still very much a "mans world" especially here in my part of New York. I'm tired of going into a sporting goods store and having the sales people either ignore me or worse yet ask me what my husband wanted me to pick up for him. (Cause that.just.happened.) I'm tired of coming up with smart remarks when a clerk asks me something ridiculous..because I'm a woman. ("Ma'am, you realize those are for a gun, right?" "Oh really..I thought they were pretty, I was gonna make some earnings out of them..") (And yes, that also happened).

That said, I've also found that the guys that I know who do shoot, are some of the nicest, helpful and most supportive people I've ever met. Always willing to lend a hand, offer advice, or even meet me at the range so I'm not there alone. To them, I'm one of the guys, and that's cool with me.


I'd love more women to get into shooting. I'd love them to see you're not alone when a salesman tries to sell a gun to your husband, when it's really for you. I'd love for every woman out there who got their pistol permit for the sole purpose of co-owning their husbands firearms, to get out there and try it. I'll try to plan a Ladies Day at the range, and now that I'm an NRA Certified Pistol Instructor, I can start helping ladies get out there on the line and get comfortable around a firearm, and just maybe like shooting as much as I do.

And in the meantime, between my random writings, I think I'm going to start keeping track of the dumb things people say to me that are firearms related..Stay tuned..and thanks for reading! And thank you NRABlog for putting me out there!

Now I have to work on getting decent pictures of me at the range..