Why are young men so stupid????

[Webleymkv]

While I admit that I'm not a particularly good age guesser, I've not noticed this issue being particularly endemic to young men or big revolvers. I've seen just as many older men handing people who are obviously new shooters 12 ga shotguns loaded with slugs or subcompact semi-autos that they have trouble with.

The last time I was at the range, the people shooting next to me included a father and his children (the oldest of which was a teenager). The only handguns that he brought for them to shoot were two 1911's and while his son seemed to handle them OK (he indicated that he'd been shooting for a while), the teenage girl (not sure if she was his daughter or the son's girlfriend) was having trouble with them. I offered to let her shoot my 5" S&W M27 and loaded the first three chambers with .38's (all the .38's that I had left) and the last three with .357 Magnums being sure to warn her about the recoil difference. Even with magnums, she was able to handle my revolver much easier than the .45.

What I really never understood is why some people feel the need to bring their significant others and/or children to the range when said person is obviously disinterested. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the person who is holding their ears, rolling their eyes, and/or playing with their cell phone the entire time doesn't want to be there.

 

[Winchester_73]

Ok fine guys, I will admit I have a personal pet peeve with age discrimination. I don't know what more I can do to separate myself from my age group / generation and when I feel like I am being judged for something unchangeable, and then being stereotyped because so and so guys nephew is a fool, I get really mad, really fast It strikes I guess we could say, one of my most sensitive nerves, more so than even anti gun stuff. The anti gun people are ignorant, illogical, misinformed, etc, but I feel like judging someone by their race, gender, height, shoe size, weight, hair color, and of course, age, is something so foolish, something that is almost more obviously wrong than saying "hey, no one should have guns."

I got my job with the US government at age 20 (about 8 years ago), and moved out of my parents house right then. I work as a Registered Nurse and I have been the youngest person on my unit for the majority of the time. I've had to deal with people doubting me, or assuming what I like or how I think just because they see I am young. These people who engage in this stereotyping are often the ones who were supremely young and dumb themselves, and many do not understand that if a person is doing better (in general) than they were, at the same age, then that older person should be respectful. These people also seem to think "well hell, I was young and dumb and so really everyone else is too" well that's BS of course. Giving someone a "respect penalty" just because of their age is really stupid, when you think about it. My other pet peeve from older people is "you know, I was just like you..." Actually, NO, you weren't. I've met people who were like me when younger, but the thing is, I can tell by getting to know that person, and the person that feels the need to say it is often full of it, or perhaps they want to imagine they were the same.

I provide for myself, I have two children, a wife, etc. I am a conservative person who enjoys history. I enjoy older movies (I like Bogart and William Holden), and even when I was 21, I went to bars to play pool, not to get hammered and tell everyone how cool it is. I say all of this because some people who are say, baby boomers, liken "a rare young person" to "young people like that don't exist." Rare and doesn't exist are two different things. Rather than judge someone by looking at them, or their age, the wiser stance is to give people benefit of the doubt, because they may surprise you in the end. Of course, many of you know that, but still, many do not.

 

[allaroundhunter]

I I don't think all young men are stupid.... Heck I'm fairly young (21) and I have never had the desire myself to shoot anything more than a .357, much less ask my girlfriend to shoot something that powerful. Now, my girlfriend has shot everything that I own and has found her own limits. I didn't push her, she just has been curious to try. Her limit with shotguns is a 1 oz slug (12 ga), but she loves shooting reduced recoil slugs. With rifles? My .308 is a bit much, but I just made up some lower recoil rounds that she also likes. She absolutely loves shooting my .444 Marlin because she likes the big case and bullet, but that think kicks like a kitty kat. In pistol she is good with 9mm, .40 and .45 ACP; but she draws the line with my .38 super. She knows for herself what she doesn't like, but anything else is fair game

I would have to say that her favorite rifles are my AR (5.56) and my .243. Her favorite gun to shoot (by far) however, is my Glock 19.


I did start her off with a .22 and let her work her way up. She had always wanted to go shooting and learn to shoot, but her family just never were shooters (but not anti-gun, either). She made for an easy student, and now she out shoots me on occasion

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Just last week I did an introduction to shooting class for two young couples. One of the guys had shot before (a little), the other had not (but knew everything), and the women had not shot or ever held a gun before. I was doing this as a fill-in at the range because they were over-booked and the instructor who normally would have done the class already had one. So I followed their protocol (to which I subscribe) and we used a .22LR revolver.

After we got done with the classroom part and went downstairs to shoot, the guys (especially Mr. Know-it-all) were openly contemptuous that "all" we were going to shoot was a .22. But ... it was the right choice. The range provided each couple one 50-round box of ammo for this intro class. The female affiliated with Mr. Know-it-all didn't even want to finish out her allotted portion. I think she ran two cylinders through the gun (maybe three), and she was done. She obviously didn't enjoy shooting, but at least she wasn't intimidated by the experience. And once she figured out that I wasn't kidding when I said to line up the front sight with the rear sight, she was getting decently on paper, if not endangering 300-10x.

The other young woman shot half decently (better than Mr. Know-it-all, which I found gratifying) and she admitted that she "might" come back some day to try again. Certainly not an instant convert but, again, not intimidated by the experience. I'm sure if their boyfriends or husbands had insisted on starting them off with some big-bore hand cannon they would have been finished with guns right on the spot.

 

[Winchester_73]

Your opinion of Taurus revolvers is not universal. I'd consider a 4" Taurus 357 to be a good choice, for a rental gun. My wife had no trouble with one for her first handgun shooting experience. I promise it would be a lot better choice than a "492 kickenboomer." It's a K-frame sized gun, and even with P+ 38 ammo should have releativly light recoil. The only reason I wouldn't recoment P+ is it's more expensive than necessary, but since she had apparently already purchased it, it's not that big a deal.

Well for one, I don't care what anyone says about Taurus, I'm not changing my opinion of them. I'm not going to buy guns from a company with such a known reputation, even if you can tell me you have 5 that are great, we both know there are 15 that are not. If you shop around, you can get a good used S&W for less than a new Taurus. Deals are out there. Anyways, you bring up an interesting but obvious point, however, my point about the issue with giving someone new to guns a 38+P, of any type, is that a 22 should be the automatic choice. There is no reason at all to pick a 38 over a 22 in that scenario. If you want to say "maybe that is the smallest they had" or if you want to say "hey, that's better than a 454" and that its better than say a 40 cal subcompact, or a 25 cal mouse gun, I will agree with you. I was pointing out that the "full of wisdom" OP could have at least mentioned/realized how poor of a gun that is for that girl. Instead he says "Good choice" well no, it was not. In some ways, her not shooting would have been better, esp if she had enough rounds to develop bad habits. Start small and work your way up. My first rifle was a 9422, and my first pistol a Ruger MKIII. I chose 22s to start because that is by far the smartest way to do it.

 

[Lost Sheep]

Neophytes and the big guns

My shooting buddy has a .500 S&W 4" X-frame.

He often lets neophytes shoot it. It is fun to watch them.

He keeps a supply of 300 or 350 grain slugs loaded over 10-13 grains of Trail Boss to start them out with. These deliver about 800 fps. The recoil out of that big gun is like a 22 rimfire.

Once they have demonstrated good gun handling, he brings out the 1,000 to 1,100 fps loads for them to shoot.

Eventually he shoots the gun (with them watching) with the full-power ammo and asks if they would like to try one of those. About 2/3 decline, young or old. Slightly more males make it to full power than females, but not by much.

Draw your own conclusions.

Lost Sheep

 

[skoro]

We "seniors" went through our stupid stage, too.

Some choose to use selective memory to filter out those days when we thought we knew it all.

 

[bikerbill]

Your question contains the answer ... "young" and "men". Lots of testosterone, guns and an attractive young lady is a dangerous combination ... bet more than one of us, even unconsciously, has shown off for our wife or GF at the range, I know I have .. however ... I would NEVER give a novice shooter a hugely powerful handgun as her introduction to shooting ... what a jerk ...

 

[Lost Sheep]

OK, judgement time

Since this thread seems to be steeped in it I will weigh in with my judgements.

The bottom line is that the guy did not take the girl to the range to teach her to shoot. He took her to show off. And I think OP ruined it for him.

As well the OP should. Guns are not for showing off.

Besides, the guy would have impressed his girl a lot more WITHOUT forcing her to do an activity for which she was not ready. There are names for that.

For those who take the OP to task for telling the girl "good choice" on the gun or the ammo she rented and bought. Telling her anything else would have been discouraging. The little white lie may be harmless.

Young men (also old men, women of any age, musicians, and people with accents, ethnicity or any appearance that includes them in any group that can be stereotyped) have to recognize that stereotyping exists. Why does it persist? Because it is useful, so we use it. (To the detriment of good communication, true, but it still persists.) Stereotyping BACK at someone only prolongs the trouble.

Webleymkv, "disinterested" and "uninterested" are distinctly different. For example: If you are in court, you WANT a Judge to be disinterested. You do NOT WANT a judge to be uninterested.

EDIT:

Disinterested means "impartial" or "not taking sides." (In other words, not having a personal interest at stake.)

Uninterested means "not interested." (In other words, not showing any interest.)

Correct: A good referee should be disinterested.
(He does not take sides.)

allaroundhunter, an excellent example of doing it right.

P5 Guy, excellent comparison.

deepcreek, I never approach the female in a couple first. (A stereotyping that is useful, as I am male and the man in any couple is probably the one to approach first.) The general rule I follow when approaching any group is to approach the leader first. Usually, that means the Father in a family (though the Mother is generally acceptable), the teacher in a class or a pair, the male in a mixed-gender pair. Even if the girl had indicated the desire to be approached (or rescued) bypassing the guy "dissed" him, as you detected and was, in my opinion, a tactical error.

I hope my post does not offend anyone. If it does, I apologize.

Private messages expressing exception to any content in this post will be acted upon. My intent is to help and any result other than that is regretted.

Lost Sheep

 

[Winchester_73]

Why does it persist? Because it is useful, so we use it. (To the detriment of good communication, true, but it still persists.) Stereotyping BACK at someone only prolongs the trouble.

No its not useful, and no it shouldn't be used. Its a form of an assumption, and when you're wrong, you look really stupid. So if you're at peace with getting caught with your pants down, and being embarrassed sometimes, and other times being right, and then other times being half right / half wrong, then go ahead. Its useful to someone who can't apply any other logic to the big picture.

 

[TXAZ]

The nice thing about being over 45...

The nice thing about being over 45 is 'you' did all of your stupid stuff before the Internet. While I was always an angel , not all of my friends were.

Lucky for them those episodes are only undocumented memories today particularly the testerone events.

 

[Frasier]

Why do young men do stupid things like show off their X frame revolver? For the same reason young men at the gym try and bench press 800 pounds when a cute girl walks by, to show off how manly they are!

I have always wanted to teach a lady how to shoot and would start off with my Ruger Mark III, after a safety lesson of course. However, my last two girlfriends were problematic; one was terrified of guns so I didn't push it. The other I would not have trusted her with a squirt gun.

 

[dayman]

Interesting thread. In my experience, stupid young men age into stupid old men. Professionally I almost prefer to deal with the young ones as they're generally less set in their ways. But I digress.

In the various posted stories, the boyfriend characters certainly do seem to be pretty socially oblivious, and want to impress their young ladies. However, the old guy characters also seem pretty socially oblivious, and also seem like they want to impress said young ladies.
One of the great things about having my own range is that I can avoid both the macho young men and the nosy old men.

We looked at his target, told him about what the holes would cost and as we were walking back to the line he really got nasty. I'd bben shooting my Colt Combat Commander .45 ACP and it was placed at my back in what is called "Mexican carry". I drew it, turned around and snapped of two quick shots and told him to check his target. There were two holes in the middle of the head on that target that were not 9MM in size. His eyes got bigger than those holes and I politely asked him to either refrain from threats or back them up.

Even if using a gun to punctuate a thinly veiled threat isn't a crime in Arizona, it's still a bad idea. Particularly when both parties are armed. Also, I hope you were both wearing hearing protection.

 

[Hawg]

Some young men do have a head on their shoulders. Most should have been stillborn. I have never forced a heavy recoiling gun on any novice, let alone a woman. Two stories tho. I had a Ruger SBH I shot heavy handloads out of. My wife at the time weighed 110 pounds soaking wet in her winter clothes(a long sleeve shirt and jeans that weren't cut off yet). To make a long story short she talked me into letting her shoot it(she was an accomplished shooter with milder guns). She absolutely loved the thing and I'm talking handloads above published maximum.
My stepdaughter at 13 was shooting full house 44 mags and loved touching off both barrels on a 12 gauge sxs(no recoil pad) and she was no heavyweight either.

 

[Webleymkv]

Originally posted by Lost Sheep

Webleymkv, "disinterested" and "uninterested" are distinctly different. For example: If you are in court, you WANT a Judge to be disinterested. You do NOT WANT a judge to be uninterested.

From the Merriam Webster website:

Definition of DISINTERESTED

1
a : not having the mind or feelings engaged : not interested

Definition of UNINTERESTED

: not interested : not having the mind or feelings engaged

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disinterested

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uninterested

 

[G1R2]

Nobody figured it out.

The girlfriend wasn't interested in Budd's guns, she was really hitting on BUDD. His guns were just an excuse to talk to him and check him out.

Watch out Budd, she will be stalking that gun range looking for you! Ya, and don't give that stuff that you're too old. Ya ain't shooting blanks yet.

 

[Winchester_73]

Webleymkv, "disinterested" and "uninterested" are distinctly different. For example: If you are in court, you WANT a Judge to be disinterested. You do NOT WANT a judge to be uninterested.

Even though Webley addressed this made up "distinct difference" I want to point out that while the root word is the same "interested", the prefix "un-" and "dis-" both basically mean "not." Its kind of like if someone asked you "is this unassembled?" you wouldn't reply with "No, its instead disassembled."

 

[45_auto]

Ok fine guys, I will admit I have a personal pet peeve with age discrimination. I don't know what more I can do to separate myself from my age group / generation and when I feel like I am being judged for something unchangeable, and then being stereotyped because so and so guys nephew is a fool.

Well for one, I don't care what anyone says about Taurus, I'm not changing my opinion of them. I'm not going to buy guns from a company with such a known reputation, even if you can tell me you have 5 that are great, we both know there are 15 that are not.

LMAO.

I guess that there is still a possibility that when you get older you'll realize that you shouldn't believe everything that you read on the internet, but at 28 you're pretty much pushing the limits of being able to attribute stupidity to your youth.

however, my point about the issue with giving someone new to guns a 38+P, of any type, is that a 22 should be the automatic choice.

Why? Some people have no interest in shooting a .22. You really believe that forcing them to shoot something that they have no desire to shoot is the way to introduce a new shooter to the sport? When I take a newbie out shooting I take a half-dozen different guns (revolvers and semis in different calibers) and demonstrate firing them, then let the new shooter pick out what they want to shoot.

I chose 22s to start because that is by far the smartest way to do it.

Maybe for you. Hopefully you'll realize as you mature that what is "smartest" or "best" for you is not necessarily "smartest" or "best" for everyone else in the world.

You really need to contact the Department of Defense and tell them how stupid they are by introducing soldiers to handguns with those nasty 9mm's.

The first handgun that I ever fired was a 45ACP in the military. My first handgun that I bought personally was a .38 Super in the early 70's. I literally had dozens of handguns ranging from 9mm to 44 magnum before I bought my first 22 in the early 90's. I still find .22's extremely boring to shoot compared to anything else. That was by far the smartest way for me to do it.

If you're ever down this way we'll go shooting. I've got a lot of friends who shoot (male and female) who have never owned and have no interest in owning a .22. We'll hit a couple of the local competitions and see how well your "smartest" approach compares to other people's "stupid" approach.

 

[SgtLumpy]

There's plenty of us geezer guys that are just as stupid as you young whippersnappers. And we've had half a century of more to perfect our stupidity.


Get off my lawn.


Sgt Lumpy

 

[ricko]

You're right, W73, it's not an age thing - it's a macho hide-your-insecurity thing. The same guys probably have pit bulls or dobermans at home to help boost their tough guy self-images. Unfortunately, they are represented in every generation.