Manzano Mountain Gun Club

We have received this press release from the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish. It relates to misbehavior in Torrance County, so we want to spread the word:

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Today was the day — the Seventh Annual Moriarty Rotary Youth Pheasant Hunt took place at Shiver Farm north of Moriarty. Conditions were perfect, too: wam, clear, just a touch of breeze in the morning.

The day began with NRA safety training followed by shooting clays. For the clays there were three shooting stations, with youth participants lined up safely behind the shooting line waiting their turn. 

Three shooting stations at the Moriarty Rotary Youth Pheasant Hunt,
with a single shooter & instructors at each station.

Each participant had three opportunities to shoot a string of five clays. While some beginning shooters needed several attempts before breaking their first clay, an impressive number of the youth shooters were busting every clay thrown out for them.

MMGC youth member Heather Warren takes aim at a clay.
Heather broke 14 of the 15 clays thrown for her.

As one of the primary purposes of our club is to promote youth firearms training and shooting opportunities, the Manzano Mountain Gun Club is pleased to again provide funding for a shotgun raffle prize for the Moriarty Rotary Youth Pheasant Hunt.

MMGC’s shotgun prize was won by Albuquerque resident Lauren Wilder, who will be able to redeem her certificate at Charlie’s Sporting Goods. Lauren, the daughter of Dennis Wilder, rides horses and has raised lambs for 4-H. She first held a gun as a 10-year-old. Now 15, Lauren is a member of ROTC, where she participates in the .22 caliber marksmanship program. Although she doesn’t hunt (yet!), she will soon be the proud owner of a quality shotgun.

Several of MMGC’s youth members successfully completed the Hunter Safety training in Estancia over the weekend of March 5-6. We would like to express our congratulations to Lorenzo Griego (age 10), Wyatt Greene (also age 10) and Dylan Greene (age 7) — all youth members of the Manzano Mountain Gun Club and all now qualified to go hunting with their families.

Adult club members Alan Clute and Trinidad Griego also completed the Hunter Safety class, with the intention of preparing to be Hunter Safety instructors in the near future. Congratulations to Trini and Alan as well!

The Manzano Mountain Gun Club donated $300 toward the purchase of a youth shotgun which was offered as a drawing prize for participants in the Moriarty Rotary Youth Pheasant Hunt. Charlie’s Sporting Goods in Albuquerque picked up the rest of the tab for the shotgun.

The Moriarty Rotary Youth Pheasant Hunt is an annual family event. It occurred this year on Saturday, November 13, at the Shiver Ranch in Stanley. Forty youth participated in the event, and more than 100 volunteers made the day a very satisfying experience for the participants. In addition to the Moriarty Rotary, the hunt was supported by Shorty’s Bar-B-Q, who catered lunch, and the Big Horn Gun Club, whose members assisted at the shooting stations. The NMSU Torrance County 4-H office, including home economist Corina Neish and her family, served breakfast burritos, coffee and cocoa, free of charge. Sudie Teaney of the Torrance County Cooperative Extension Office, and Leslie and Carlos Chavez, Desperados 4-H Club leaders, assisted with registration.

Safety is the number one issue in gun handling and shooting, and, as the Zia membership handbook puts it, safety is the moral issue. Guns can be handled safely, of course, just like cars can be driven safely. Alas, it is also true of both guns and cars that they can be handled in quite unsafe ways.

This will be a topic that I’ll post on a lot, because it is so important. For today, let’s start with some good reading.

First, the NRA has 3 fundamental gun safety rules, which you can read here. Following them keeps us all out of trouble!

Col. Jeff Cooper, founder of the “modern technique” of pistol shooting, founder of Gunsite, and general inspiration to many many modern shooters, developed his famous 4 Rules for safe gun handling. Even though many people argue about the best way to word Rule 1, it still remains true that we would have to violate two of the 4 Rules to get into any trouble. And of course, we won’t violate any of them, right?!

My shotgun teacher once mentioned that her mother always admonished, “It’s not polite to point a gun at people!” And that is certainly the first golden rule. If you always keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target, and if you never point your gun at a person (or anything else you are not willing to put holes into) then the trouble you can get into with a gun is limited, approaching zero. Which is exactly how we like it.