Took a blind friend to the range

[Ian]

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?

 

[Omni04]

wow thats really awesome! Now we can all say to certain people "you are such a horrible shot, i saw a blind man do better!"

did you do all the reloading and gun handling before he fired?

 

[Cavalry]

And I thought I was brave for taking my girl friend to the range, good for him, good to see the man still has heart

 

[White Horseradish]

There are shooting competitions for blind people.

Look here:

http://www.ibsa.es/eng/deportes/shooting/presentacion.htm

Maybe you can use some of the things they talk about there to make shooting even more fun for him.

 

[Kamicosmos]

I remember seeing a special about a blind archer on one of the Olympic teams. It was freaky to watch her shoot.

Good job with your friend!

 

[armoredman]

Thank you for giving him such a special gift before the inevitable. I have bad vision, so I can commiserate. Take him again, before the darkness closes his eyes forever....

 

[Standing Wolf]

Good for you and your friend both! Well done!

 

[GunGoBoom]

Sweet - good on ya - and him!

 

[iiibdsiil]

Should take him to the local indoor ranges just to mess with the RO. Have him walk into a wall or something, then ask to rent a gun. When they say no, have him be like "That's okay, I have my own! Lemme get an hour on the range." Hahahahaha

 

[walking arsenal]

Zatoichi with a shotgun.

Nice>

 

[Kurush]

This got me thinking, I wonder how hard it would be to make a gong-type target that makes a different sound depending on where you hit it... I think I saw something like that a while ago...

Aha, here it is. Steel drum pans: http://www.apollosaxes.com/hightenorpan.html

 

[KONY]

Ian, you are the best friend a guy could have! Keep up the good work!

 

[mrbill]

now that's cool!

 

[Cacique500]

Great job - I bet he had a great time out there!

Aha, here it is. Steel drum pans: http://www.apollosaxes.com/hightenorpan.html

For $1040 per pan I think I'd find something else to shoot at!

 

[Rebar]

Read about this guy:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/videogames/cst-nws-blind28.html

 

[Ian]

Thanks for all the kind comments, guys.

Omni04 - Actually, he did about half of the handling and reloading, mostly with the rifles and shotguns we had out.

I think he has the potential to be a lot better at most of that stuff than most sighted shooters. He's a good deal more aware of his sense of touch, and picked up things like safety manipulation quickly.

Also, it was interesting to me to note which guns he particularly liked: my coach shotgun and M1 Garand. He said they both felt sturdier than anything else I had out (including an AK, SKS, and several pump shotguns).