AR-15 M16 assault rifle range target
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By Matt Manda

There’s a growing chorus for strict gun control following the tragic murders in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, where deranged individuals took the lives of innocent Americans.

Ryan Petty isn’t among them, though some might expect him to be. Petty’s 14-year-old daughter Alaina was murdered in the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy. Instead of blaming gun owners that follow the law, he’s inviting them and others with a call-to-action of his own: Go to the range, practice and show your support for the Second Amendment.

His efforts are gaining momentum.

#ResponsibleGunOwnersDay

Petty is also a federally-licensed gun store owner. He’s calling on all law-abiding Americans and gun owners to head to their local practice shooting range on Saturday, June, 11, for a national Responsible Gun Owners Day. NSSF is supporting Petty’s efforts to practice and teach others about responsible gun ownership. He joined Bearing Arms’ Cam Edwards – who was guest hosting the nationally-syndicated Erick Erickson radio show – to talk about his efforts.

“With anti-gun activists and politicians once again calling for gun control measures that will only punish responsible gun owners for the evil acts of criminals, activists have called for June 11th, 2022, to be a day of marches and protests against our Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms,” Petty told Edwards. “I say enough! It’s time for responsible gun owners to stand up and take action. So, I am calling all responsible gun owners to a national day at your local gun range on June 11th, 2022.”

Petty added, “Being a gun owner demands responsibility; becoming and maintaining proficiency with firearms is part of that responsibility. Your neighborhood gun range is the best resource for training and education on firearms proficiency, safety, handling and storage.”

Interested gun owners can participate in #ResponsibleGunOwnersDay anywhere in the country at their local, neighborhood shooting range. Find a range near you at NSSF’s website wheretoshoot.org.

Gaining Steam

Petty announced his #ResponsibleGunOwnersDay idea, in partnership with NSSF, over social media and the feedback was immediate and positive.

“This is a cause worth supporting!” tweeted Fox News contributor and retired Marine (ret.) Johnny “Joey” Jones. Jones visited SHOT Show 2022 and spoke about the importance of firearms and what safe ownership and practice meant to him. “The face of the Second Amendment is the face of any American,” Jones said at the time. “This Constitution – the Bill of Rights that we have – they’re for all of us.”

In his social media post announcing #ResponsibleGunOwnersDay, Petty told his followers it’s easy to find your nearest community practice range to participate. “Need help finding a range for #ResponsibleGunOwnersDay at the Range? Find it here –> www.WhereToShoot.org #LetsGoShoot.”

Second Amendment-supporting Americans gave Petty some immediate feedback. “I’ll BE OUT THERE SIR!,” said one woman. “#ResponsibleGunOwnersDay sounds AWESOME – see you at the range!” another exclaimed. Second Amendment advocate and veteran Virginia Kruta added, “This is a really good idea. #ResponsibleGunOwnersDay.”

Advocate Dan Roth expanded the call and invited his followers to join him too. “I’ll be heading to a local range on this day. If you are interested in joining me, let me know and we’ll see what we can do. It could be a great opportunity to learn about safe and responsible gun ownership,” he tweeted.

Saturday, June, 11, is coming up fast and all signs show that #RespsonibleGunOwnersDay could be a boon to demonstrate America’s law-abiding gun owners are responsible and looking for more education, training and safety. They’re showing that the answer isn’t more gun control on those who obey the law, but enforcement of the laws to hold criminals responsible.

The Landscape

 More than 40 million Americans purchased a firearm between 2020 and 2022. To date, there have been 34 months of at least 1 million firearms sold per month and it’s still going. That number includes roughly 14 million new first-time gun owners. The gun-owning community is now the most diverse it’s ever been – with women and African-American and minority buyers leading the new wave.

President Joe Biden and some in Congress are clamoring to pass more restrictions on law-abiding Americans looking to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Not all lawmakers agree with the proposed bans. U.S. senators are cautiously working on a legislative proposal that would be focused on solving problems instead of pushing political agendas.

While gun control groups stage their rallies and garner the attention of major media networks and talking head TV pundits lauding their “courage,” Petty is urging Americans in communities across the country to head to their local shooting range and demonstrate a different kind of courage – the courage to lawfully own a firearm, stand up for Constitutional rights and to refuse to be a victim.

 

Matt Manda is Manager, Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation

49 COMMENTS

  1. Amen! Going to the range to prepare for a couple classes the next two weekends. Practice is good, it’s even better with a quality instructor.

  2. The 11th is a Saturday.
    Absolutely, positively, definitely the WORST day of the week to head to a range. Hands down the busiest day, a favorite for those with little experience, many with rental guns they’ve never handled before.

    How about calling for a second day to show support, make it a Tuesday or Wednesday.

    • “Absolutely, positively, definitely the WORST day of the week to head to a range. Hands down the busiest day, a favorite for those with little experience, many with rental guns they’ve never handled before.”

      Damn straight. Especially at the outdoors range I need to hit to sight in my brand-new 10/22 Tactical break-down…

      • Best time around here is early on a Sunday morning. Churches are full of gun toting Christians (No Offense) and the partiers are still sleeping it off. I can usually get in an hour or so of undisturbed range time in.

    • You’re too full of yourself. That’s partly why the 2A is in the mess it is in. There are concepts bigger than our individual selves. It’s not about your personal enjoyment and experience, and wowing the masses with your tacticool skills, equipment that day. Saturday is exactly the day we need to be going to the range. Show support and encouragement for those newbies; make friends; demonstrate maximum turnout and 2A support. You don’t even have to shoot to support the 2A on Saturday. You can go to the range to shoot another day when the newbies aren’t there, range slower for your practice and enjoyment.

      • I have noticed the masses are quite wowed when I break open the single shot and the barrel falls off then I tactically shove a stick down it to knock out the empty.

      • yeah, no. you’re just a better man. enjoy the packed range, i can’t stand it. my kids bring me new victims regularly; literally the only caveats to attending are must be a weekday and are your folks ok with it- or keep yer yap trap shut.
        getting them on paper is more enjoyable than shooting.

      • ‘You’re too full of yourself. That’s partly why the 2A is in the mess it is in….’

        My impression of SLP2A……..
        ‘Wahhhhhh, you don’t agree with me. I’ll personally belittle you about how you support the 2nd A and choose to shoot/own firearms, ALL because it doesn’t align with my narrow views. The 2nd issues are your fault too…….. ‘

        Why not put your big pants on before posting comments?

        • Definitely better James NOT go Saturday as you’ll drive off newbies from the 2A community. Teeny tiny chains are so easy, fun to yank….. RE/SH/LMAO

    • Sounds like a bull** excuse to me. So stay home, or go do whatever it is that you are doing. One day, you will never have to worry about any day of the week being convenient, because if the Demon-Rats have their way, you will not have any firearms of any kind to practice your proficiency with.

      • Zero Fs given in regard to what my impressions of Sat shooting ‘sounds like’ to you.

        The FFL/range I frequent (Texas Gun Experience) rents over 200 machine guns, Sat is their busiest day for these rentals. I don’t know of ANY regular shooters who set foot in the TGE range on a Saturday.

        If you don’t understand, too bad.

  3. Prior to Uvalde and Buffalo I completed another carbine and purchased another stripped upper and lower receiver to have on hand. My response to Gun Control zealots using murdered grocery shoppers and school children to attack The Second Amendment is buying components to complete the build.

    Nothing sick Gun Control zealots would like more than seeing Gun Stores and internet sales shut down and the owners arrested. Or gun owner homes raided like nazis raided the homes of Jews or the democRat Party kkk raided the shacks of Black Americans.

    Ants in the pants Gun Control perverts wish it, want it but they damned sure can’t have it.

    • Working on Saturday. Definitely planning a range trip to site in my new scope. The $4 a day range is a 90mile round trip. Just paid 5.49 a gallon for gas 😟

      • “5.49 a gallon for gas”

        The climate fanatics are loving it. Well, the wealthy ones are. I predict some people will give up the cause of forced misery for zero tangible benefit outside of making a select few people wealthy.

        • It’s well over 6 a gallon here in CA. The low income folks the dems claim they support are taking it in the neck, again.

  4. I am so sorry for your loss. I am so glad that you support people that want to protect their families from murderers, I just wish I could have done something so you did not have to suffer a loss.

    • The good news is no matter how many children or adults are not around any more because of they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, gun sales are going up and up!

  5. Hey, Dan, (or TTAG management) –

    Has TTAG done an article on sighting in a new scope, for someone who hasn’t done it yet?

    Is there a recommended procedure for doing it? Things not to do?

    • There’s a bunch of YouTube videos on sighting in all manner of scopes Geoff. Some EZ some complex…

    • If I remember correctly I thought I read one here which helped me a lot, even after having a lot of experience with shooting since I was a kid. It helps save on time and money/ammo but you need a good shooting rest to do it, to keep the gun stable.

      The article goes more in depth but, the basics are you set the gun up on the rest and just get a round on paper. Then you adjust the crosshairs to that hole. Then you’re pretty much done. After that you confirm zero.

      • “Then you adjust the crosshairs to that hole“

        Exactly, and if you have the scope documentation you will know exactly how far each click of windage or elevation will move the bullet impact point.

        • Even if you are correct, you’re the next-to-last person I would ever trust by taking your advice.

          The last person is Dacien.

  6. As long as I can remember the media loves to fawn all over victims who come out for more power to the regime. Curiously they never highlight people like this father or Suzanna Hupp or Evan Todd or any other survivor who doesn’t parrot the regime line.

    Kinda like silencing anyone who suggested losing weight and a healthy diet would aid you against COVID. Nope, that’s disinfo. Just take the jab and watch the MSM 24/7 for more regime updates or else we’ll label you a horse dewormer taking, fish tank cleaner drinking racist.

  7. Id love to go the range with my AR but I live in New York and by the time I load the car and get to the line the Governor may have ordered or the legislature may have secretly outlawed the platform, or changed the compliance standard, or declared me to be a red flag just for owning it.

  8. Time at the range is good. I’ve cutting back a bit lately putting attention to getting setup for reloading. I’ll be headed back to range soon.

  9. Every Saturday I drive to the bridge, crack a cold one, toss the empty in the creek and try and shoot it . After the 30 pack runs out I stumble back to the car and drive home.

  10. Hope the Sheriff Deputy doesn’t wander across the bridge while you are finishing your 30-pack. Guns with alcohol is a felony in most states.

  11. Just what in hell’s name would you expect a GUN STORE OWNER to do ? He’s hardly likley to be the turkey who voted for Chrismas is he? If you think that somehow this add’s up to a generakl support against tougher gun control legislation you must be deluded . I do not think that anybody is seriously considering outright banning of fiearms in America but surely to god there cannot be opposition to tougher controls. 20,000 casualties a year down to gun-crime and climbing ? If the military had that many casualties per year it would amount to all-out war somewhere. The military did not have that many in ntwo Gulf Wars or Afghanistan in nearlty TWO DECADES of combat and we talk of SHATTERING RUSSIAN CASUATIES in UKRAINE as they reach a similar number THe Soviet Union suffered around 15,000 casualties inn a decade in AFGHANISTAN and that was enough to make them quit
    Even in the UK where I live everybody still has the absolute right to own firearms as long as they can prove need, cause and pass seriously difficult conditions of license and have no criminal record . There have been only as far as I can ascertian TWO mass shootings other than terrorist actions, which none of us can predict, in the UK in the last maybe hundred years and in both case the resulted, OVERNIGHT, in more restrictive gun control legislation and with the full support of the electorate .

    • Stay in the UK where you belong, Albert. Your comment is coming from someone who has been disarmed, de-cucked, and de-balled. You have no Second Amendment right-period. Such a right-if you have one at all-is a privilege graciously bestowed upon you by your masters if you are a good little slave-subject to be removed from you at any time, for any reason, or no reason at all. And the last time I checked in history, removing guns from the law abiding did nothing to stop crime, let alone tyrannical governments. Disarming people only made it easier for the criminals to do their job. But people like you will never learn.

    • Berlin update (8 June 2022): 30 people injured and one dead (no firearm involved).

    • So, Albert the Subject, you compound your childish illogic with patent lies, I see:

      “I do not think that anybody is seriously considering outright banning of fiearms in America but surely to god there cannot be opposition to tougher controls.” To mention just three, Beta “Fake Mexican” O’Jerk, Dianne “Insider Trading” Feinswein, and Creepy Joe the Serial Child-Groper have ALL advocated precisely that, you lying liar. Sod off, swampy.

  12. Whew!
    We can rest easy now, everyone knows what the ‘subject’ thinks. 🤪

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