Next time some gun owner complains about the expense or time commitment to shoot, slap him upside the head with this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/sports/olympics/10shinn.html

Aiming for a Gold Medal After a 24-Year Break

When she needs to practice, Brenda Shinn shoos her dogs into the yard and tells her son, K. C., to stay in his room for a while. Then she pulls out her air pistol, plants her feet in the dining room of her home in Riverside, Calif., and pulls the trigger.

Brenda Shinn is an unlikely Olympic athlete, and not just because of her homemade shooting range, which stretches 10 meters across an entryway and into her living room. At 46 years old, Shinn regularly makes the list of “older” athletes competing in the Olympics this year. She is a lieutenant in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. She is a single mother. And if that is not enough, she made the Olympic team after taking a 24-year break from her sport, returning in 2006 after her son left for college.

“I have not seen people come back like Brenda did,” said Sergey Luzov, the United States pistol coach. “It’s usually a competitor’s death.”

Let’s see. A single Mom at the age of 46 dry fires and shoots an air gun at home and manages to make the Olympics. What was your excuse again?

Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, this pro-gun story was in the NY Times. Isn’t it amazing what a properly-publicized shooting event can do for media coverage?