I am proud to belong to such a great community. My community is friendly, giving, loyal, fun, patriotic, and above all else — responsible. It’s the type of community where a man will hold a door for a woman or for someone with their arms full. It’s the type of community where you can trust fellow members with the safety of your children. The community I’m speaking about is my local firearms community. I know the anti-gun media, and some of our left leaning politicians, would have you believe otherwise but they’re either being dishonest or ignorant. Gun people are by and large good people — wholesome people. That’s certainly been my experience over the last 44 years I’ve walked this earth.
A young man enjoying shooting the SCAR 16S. All ammo was donated by local companies and individuals.
While we have a great community today, what about tomorrow? Who will we entrust with our freedoms when the current generation has passed away? The answer is, “our children”. It’s our responsibility to pass on our rich American traditions including firearms ownership and the concept of individual liberty. We must teach our children not only the safe handling of firearms but we must also teach them why it’s important we continue to protect our right to own them. That’s one of the reasons I’m a big fan of Project Appleseed.
While Project Appleseed is a great project, one I would encourage everyone reading this to take part in, we can also do things independently as a community to foster growth and understanding about firearms ownership at the local level. That’s exactly what happened this weekend in Winamac, Indiana at the first annual INGO “Meet and Shoot” gathering. Indiana Gun Owners, or INGO as we call it, is an internet discussion forum dedicated to shooters in the state of Indiana. While it’s named Indiana Gun Owners, you don’t need to be a Hoosier to enjoy the INGO community, we have folks from all around the country joining in on the discussions.
Hotdogs and hamburgers were served free of charge.
Winamac is a state range located in NW Indiana and is part of a larger state park. The range is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday and is maintained by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Indiana has several state ranges such as Winamac across the state.
INGO setup this first annual event with donations from companies such as Blythes Sports and Westforth Sports as well as through donations given by individuals. Donations included thousands of rounds of .223, .22LR, 20ga and 12ga shotgun ammo. Hearing protection, eye protection, and even clays for trap shooting were all donated to the event as well. The state DNR even donated shotguns for everyone to shoot, man I love Indiana! Everyone was invited to this free event where food was served and ammo was flowing — and it didn’t cost the participants a single cent to take part in the festivities. People were encouraged to bring friends, family, neighbors, new shooters, seasoned shooters and kids.
Instructors were on hand to help novice shooters get some safe range time. I took my 4 year old son (soon to be 5) with me to the event and he had a great time. You can see him shooting an .22 caliber AR15 clone in the picture at the top of this article. If you wanted to shoot something a little bigger such as a SCAR 16S, one was available for you to shoot. If you wanted to try your hand at clays, all you had to do was step up to the line and grab a shotgun (with supervision of course).
A boy trying his hand at shooting clays. Notice the orange clay passing his head on its way down range.
What’s so amazing about this is that ammo is VERY hard to find right now and when you can find it, it will cost twice it’s normal price if not more. A case of .223, which is 1000 rounds, can cost $600 or more at todays prices and at least a case of this hard to find ammo was on hand for anyone to shoot.
Seeing the kids shooting and learning about the proper handling of firearms warms my heart. I enjoy seeing the future of our country, our youth, learning the importance of what it means to live free and how the ultimate expression of that freedom is our 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. If we don’t make sure to pass our knowledge on there’s a risk that future generations will lose their rights and ultimately their freedom. Events like this go a long way in helping to educate our youth and that’s always a positive thing. It’s also a great place for people not all that familiar with firearms to come and learn more about them in a safe and friendly environment.
Don’t wait for an Appleseed shoot before you organize a local even such as this. Use the internet to your advantage and start reaching out to your local firearm community and start having regular get togethers such as this. It’s fun, relaxing and critical to securing our freedoms for future generations. I’ll definitely be at next years event at Winamac!
MAC
MAC is an avid shooter, former MCSF Marine, NRA member, Oath Keeper and is commissioned as a Colonel by the Governor of Kentucky. Known for his videos on the Military Arms Channel, he also writes for The Bang Switch, for Shotgun News (Be Ready!) and freelances for Guns & Ammo. MAC has been a life long shooter who has an interest in all things that go "bang" but gravitates towards military type firearms.
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