by Hubert Townsend
That ad campaign whose slogan is “People do stupid things”, sure hits us all. Since the shooting sports has no tackling, checking or grabbing, its safety record is about perfect. But on the firing line people occasionally do stupid things. If there is a human involved, there will always be stupid stuff. As every teacher knows, there will always be a student who just doesn’t get the concept, misses the boat or any other number of out to lunch clichés.
Corporal X had sat through the fundamental lectures yet continued to fail when shooting the electronic rifle system. All but one of our instructors had personally worked with him to no avail. The next day, on the live fire range he failed several times.
Finally, our oldest and most experienced instructor showed me the importance of age and experience. He asked the hapless soldier to “Draw me a picture in the sand of what it looks like when you are aiming.” The corporal drew a circle (rear sight) with a line going from the bottom of the circle all the way straight through the top, poking out a bit with the middle of a silhouette on its tip.
“Corporal, why is the tip of the front sight on top of the circle instead of in the middle?”
“Because it’s easier to see that way, sergeant.”
“MMhhmmm, I think we’ve discovered the source of your problem.”
Five years later a male soldier mature enough to put his ego aside came up to me and said that he never qualified during his entire career. So I watched him closely. His first shot group was a bunch larger than the minimum standard of four cm. We tightened up his position and did some trigger control exercises that only decreased his group a small amount.
Recalling the previous “stupid stuff”, I politely asked this officer to “draw me a picture…” His picture looked like a tulip with the two leaves (front sight wings) and the front sight going straight up with the target properly centered on the tip.
“Sir, where is the circle, the rear sight, in this picture?” His astonished look and answer of “Rear sight?” gave us a major clue to his difficulties. Amazingly, his next group, while now using the aiming fundamentals, resulted in an outstanding group that would be in the top 10 percentile for smallness. As us enlisted know, stupidity knows no rank or age.
But my favorite human moment on the firing line was at the Fort Dix pistol range. Along with the usual safety briefing, the range officer had stated that no cell phones were allowed on the firing line. When I asked why, I was gruffly told “No cell phones allowed.”
Later on I caught him alone and asked “Sir, I don’t even have a cell phone, but what is the deal with no cells phones allowed up there?”
He looked around to see if anyone was listening and then told me the story behind the new regulation. The soldiers were all lined up in front of their target lanes with their pistols loaded, a round in the chamber and pointed downrange waiting for their targets to pop up and shoot. One of the soldier’s cell phones began ringing. She kept the pistol’s muzzle parallel to the ground and pointed in the targets’ direction, but when bringing the phone up to her ear had unthinkingly turned herself, along with the pistol, 90 degrees like most people do when answering a cell in the company of others. EEyyaaaahh!!! -phone in one ear and loaded pistol aimed right down the firing line. Technology strikes again.
Fortunately, one has to violate all two of the fundamental safety rules to hurt someone; muzzle always pointed in a safe direction and finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
That old rock and roller Frank Zappa was correct in saying “There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe. And it has a longer shelf life.” So, we firearms instructors will always remain vigilant in our duties, but our shared human condition does make such a serious job so much more fun. Doggone it. How can I work “Stupid is as stupid does” into this column? Stupid me.
Roger Farley
Sep 03, 2009 @ 07:34:58
I am the Chief of the Oklahoma National Guard’s Small Arms Training Team and I had a similar occurrence…
During Premobilization Training (PMT) my team was assisting M4 shooters with zeroing. My NCOIC came up to me and said, “Boss, I’ve done everything I can and this Soldier just cannot shoot a group. I’ve evaluated the Soldier’s position, trigger control, everything.” My NCOIC just could not figure out what the Soldier was doing wrong. I asked the Soldier to draw me a picture of exactly what she was seeing through her sights. She proceeded to draw a circle with a silhouette target in the center. I asked, “Where is the front sight?”
She said, “It’s in the way and I can’t see the target behind it.” After a short lecture about sight alignment and sight picture, she ‘got it’ and proceeded to get a good zero with her M4.
Roger P. Farley
CW2, OD, OKARNG
Armament Supervisor
State Marksmanship Coordinator
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Dan Ferguson
Sep 04, 2009 @ 08:06:27
Here is one for you –
Two weeks ago at my local range (indoor) I was shooting my new Colt .22 LR which is a clone of the AR-15/16, *With a scope mounted on it! I was getting very nice groups at 50 yards when I was approached by a middle eastern man who inquired “Is that a machine gun that you are shooting” (with an accent)?
I said no it is not, it is just a fun rifle to shoot and it is a semi-automatic that fires one shot with each squeeze of the trigger. About ten minutes later I noticed that he had returned to the shooting bays with an AR-15 which you can rent at the range. Imagine my displeasure when he was standing behind the shooting bays showing his two buddies the new “Toy” with the magazine inserted and waving the barrel in big three hundred and sixty degree circles … while sweeping over all the bodies standing in the shooting bays!!!
I did promptly inform him that was not accepted gun handing procedures … and to keep that rifle pointed down range! He did do it, but he looked at me like I was a crazy man! Imagine that!
Thank you,
Dan Ferguson
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John Buol
Sep 04, 2009 @ 08:39:18
Thanks for the, uh, “interesting” story. Be careful out there, you crazy guy!
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John Buol
Sep 04, 2009 @ 08:49:03
I’ve been on active duty teaching small arms since 2003. We could swap stories like this for hours!
Just remember, the FM (3.22-9 in this case) may not be the best training manual ever written, but it sure beats what the Army is using on the range!
I am convinced that if military personnel assigned duties on ranges merely bothered to read the FM first (even if they need a tutor for the big words) rather than regurgitating fables they heard from their drill sergeant, qualification rates would sky rocket.
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Ace Cards
Nov 27, 2009 @ 06:27:17
1984 through 1987 I was in my late teens and early 20’s and I used to be employed at a local gun club. I worked inside 1 of 7 cement pillbox like structures closed on 3 sides, half buried with 1/3 of the front side open so the c. pidgeons had room to fly out. The club shooters were lined up 30 or 40 ft to the rear these cement structures. Anyway all of us workers would crank judas priest and zeppelin type tunes and drink beer inside the ‘trap’ while we loaded the thrower after each release. Well the skeet shooters would drink whiskey poored out of their well stocked bars (car trunks). They also for the most part were’nt rocknroll fans so they took to ‘signaling’ us workers if our tune volume got too loud for them. They would do this by shooting at the back wall of the trap position, yell some obsenity or other then expect some quick volume reduction. Unfortunately mine trap had a 3/8″ gap between the cement roof and the back wall and some BB’s would invariably find their way in and bounce around inside making things a little exciting for a brief moment. Anyway 1 notorious shooter who always fired overcharged handloads decided to ‘signal’ me 1 night. So I’m working inside and I hear a much louder report than was even normal for his piece then silence from the weapons and excited shouting. Pretty soon a worker friend came and told me I could come out. What happened was this. Said shooter had an over and under 12 guage and he decided twas time to ‘signal me so he tried to blaste my pillbox discharging the lower barrel. This time the pressure from the overcharge was too much for the weapon to withstand and the lower barrel separated from the receiver in a quick and violent fashion. Barrel was bent downwards at an aprox 60 deg angle. Somehow it also managed to punch through the palm of this shooters hand and push several of the small bones in the back of dudes hand upwards and away. It was an ugly wound. I later saw a polaroid of it. He was taken to emergency and his weapon was put on display in the club lodge with a sign on it warning about the dangers posed from overcharging handloads. At least this persons stupidity can partially be blamed on the fact that he was a regular participant in competition skeet shooting of the sort that paid huge benifits from an ability to hit clay pidigeons at long ranges and believe me he hit some that were at unheard of distances. He won cash at this event almost every week. I’m sure his hand will never be the same however. In addition he was not the only competitor to overcharge. They were easy to spot. I mean hear. Most ignored the warning. Money will do that.
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