I have a friend who came to visit recently, who thinks guns are pretty cool, but hasn't been out shooting since he was a little kid. so, of course, I jumped at the opportunity to get him to the range for a day. Oh, and he happens to be almost completely blind.
Specifically, he has retinitis pigmentosa - a degenerative eye condition. At the moment, he has very severe tunnel vision (less than 1% of normal sight). Eventually, his eyesight will close in completely and he'll only be able to see the difference between bright and dark.
For the time being, though, he can see enough to safely enjoy shooting - and he did surprisingly well at it. He was keeping all his shots with my 1911 on a 12"x18" target at about 15 yards, standing. With my M1, he kept almost all his shots on the same target while shooting offhand at 50 yards. Not bad for a blind guy...I've seen plenty of people with perfect eyes shooting worse.
I will admit that the primary reason I'm posting this is to put up one of the picures I took of him with my 12ga coach gun. No something you see every day at the range, eh?
Specifically, he has retinitis pigmentosa - a degenerative eye condition. At the moment, he has very severe tunnel vision (less than 1% of normal sight). Eventually, his eyesight will close in completely and he'll only be able to see the difference between bright and dark.
For the time being, though, he can see enough to safely enjoy shooting - and he did surprisingly well at it. He was keeping all his shots with my 1911 on a 12"x18" target at about 15 yards, standing. With my M1, he kept almost all his shots on the same target while shooting offhand at 50 yards. Not bad for a blind guy...I've seen plenty of people with perfect eyes shooting worse.
I will admit that the primary reason I'm posting this is to put up one of the picures I took of him with my 12ga coach gun. No something you see every day at the range, eh?