James Holmes was the Zombie Target? 08 16 2012
Okay I have your attention with that title.
I had not been to a rifle range in 26 years. But when I walked into the rifle range there was something that horrified me.
We were always told to never point a gun at someone. What am I getting at, those of you who do not own one.
Right up there on the shelf of possible target types was a large target that had a picture of a Zombie Man on it. My stomach turned as I remembered my hunter safety course and my rifle team experience.
I decided oh that is just the current generation and they have a right to display their artwork and profit from it; if they didn't sell that someone else would make it. Police use targets that have thugs on them at shooting practice training ranges. etc, etc, etc.
It is kind of like all this happened while I was sleeping.
I heard the gun jocko's say after the shooting that they would not let someone with who acted like James Holmes on the range. The great irony is those targets for sale on the shelf look exactly like James Holmes!!! They have the same red hair. The same grotesque jokers face he was trying to emulate.
We have a whole new young generation that has not had firearm training and does not even have the slightest idea of what respect for the firearm means.
I looked up at the shelf and saw those targets and got some idea of what is wrong today.
It is all this generation that thinks they know everything about everything because they never had to listen once in their lives.
It is the wrong type of culture to foster regarding firearms. And I know that I am very judgmental regarding people. But that right there is a no-no. It is like combining the fantasy of video games, the escapism of video games with the deadly firearm. This generation of useless kids was taught to escape reality through dissolving their conscience into video games. Then they get a little older and somehow there is no difference between the shoot em ups on the television and the zombie targets at the range and the movie the video games are based on and the people sitting in the theater.
They have been taught demonization as a form of life.
Oh I might put a picture of a deer up their or a squirrel, wild boar head, but not a person no matter how dis-figuratively ugly, no matter how far removed from a human being while still being a human being. Their are animals and their are monsters and their are human beings. Seeing that just turned my stomach. The funny thing is I believe that some in law enforcement find that to be the preferable target.
Okay so I might have the type of non-impressionable mind that could shoot at a target like that and not go haywire, but it just is a standard or two below something I would actually do. I am not saying a person should not be able to shoot at those targets. Just that when I first saw it, it turned my stomach to think that is a standard today.
To give you some idea of the psychology behind this, I do not believe that it would be psychologically healthy to put even the picture of your own worst enemy on that down range target.
All ranges should have a monitor that tells you were your bullet went so you don't have to reel the target back so many times or get round impressions around your eyes from looking through binoculars, one time I set a video camera on zoom lens on the shelf by me as I shot while I was sighting in, but that should all be part of a good modern professional shooting range.
Copyright 2012 Thomas Paul Murphy
Okay I have your attention with that title.
I had not been to a rifle range in 26 years. But when I walked into the rifle range there was something that horrified me.
We were always told to never point a gun at someone. What am I getting at, those of you who do not own one.
Right up there on the shelf of possible target types was a large target that had a picture of a Zombie Man on it. My stomach turned as I remembered my hunter safety course and my rifle team experience.
I decided oh that is just the current generation and they have a right to display their artwork and profit from it; if they didn't sell that someone else would make it. Police use targets that have thugs on them at shooting practice training ranges. etc, etc, etc.
It is kind of like all this happened while I was sleeping.
I heard the gun jocko's say after the shooting that they would not let someone with who acted like James Holmes on the range. The great irony is those targets for sale on the shelf look exactly like James Holmes!!! They have the same red hair. The same grotesque jokers face he was trying to emulate.
We have a whole new young generation that has not had firearm training and does not even have the slightest idea of what respect for the firearm means.
I looked up at the shelf and saw those targets and got some idea of what is wrong today.
It is all this generation that thinks they know everything about everything because they never had to listen once in their lives.
It is the wrong type of culture to foster regarding firearms. And I know that I am very judgmental regarding people. But that right there is a no-no. It is like combining the fantasy of video games, the escapism of video games with the deadly firearm. This generation of useless kids was taught to escape reality through dissolving their conscience into video games. Then they get a little older and somehow there is no difference between the shoot em ups on the television and the zombie targets at the range and the movie the video games are based on and the people sitting in the theater.
They have been taught demonization as a form of life.
Oh I might put a picture of a deer up their or a squirrel, wild boar head, but not a person no matter how dis-figuratively ugly, no matter how far removed from a human being while still being a human being. Their are animals and their are monsters and their are human beings. Seeing that just turned my stomach. The funny thing is I believe that some in law enforcement find that to be the preferable target.
Okay so I might have the type of non-impressionable mind that could shoot at a target like that and not go haywire, but it just is a standard or two below something I would actually do. I am not saying a person should not be able to shoot at those targets. Just that when I first saw it, it turned my stomach to think that is a standard today.
To give you some idea of the psychology behind this, I do not believe that it would be psychologically healthy to put even the picture of your own worst enemy on that down range target.
All ranges should have a monitor that tells you were your bullet went so you don't have to reel the target back so many times or get round impressions around your eyes from looking through binoculars, one time I set a video camera on zoom lens on the shelf by me as I shot while I was sighting in, but that should all be part of a good modern professional shooting range.
Copyright 2012 Thomas Paul Murphy
My first novel “The Voyage of the Cauldron Skipper” can be
found at the link below, virtually everywhere online and at select Milwaukee
area Booksellers.
My artwork can be found here:
My music CD “Plantation Songs by Thomas Paul Murphy” can be
found here:
I also have a new CD at the above address titled “Fading
Fall Expressions” it is my Native American Flute Music.
There are valid psychological principles and there are invalid psychological principles. There are valid psychological principles that are applied in an invalid manner. Putting a target of a human being downrange falls under the category of a catharcism that is unhealthy. Working out with the heavy bag is indeed a healthy form of catharcism. It is about who is trying to prove what and for what reason.
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