On May 6, 2016, our Nueces County 4-H Trap and Skeet Club held their annual competition at Corpus Christi Pistol and Rifle Club, home to the Nueces County group. Over 270 youth competed in skeet, trap, whiz bang, and sporting clays, a record number of young gun enthusiasts for this event. My brother, Lane Zamora, and his friend, Kaden Strey, participated in this year’s event and had a great time!
They are learning how to shoot skeet and trap, skills that make for more accurate shooting while hunting game. They also learn more than that. The 4-H Trap and Skeet Clubs primarily focus on gun safety for kids. The participants take the Project ChildSafe Pledge, which reads:
- I will not handle guns without permission from a grown-up that I know.
- I will never play with guns.
- I will not go snooping or allow my friends to go snooping for guns in the house.
- If I find a gun, even if it looks like a toy, I will not touch it; I will tell a grown-up I know right away.
- I will obey the rules of safe gun handling.
The club also helps them be more disciplined and practice the self-control required for responsible firearms use, which helps them in their everyday lives, too. They learn the safe and ethical use of firearms and understand that knowing how to handle a gun will prevent gun accidents. For my brother, it is something that he and my dad enjoy doing together. What he learns about shooting a gun he also uses to shoot a bow. Even I sometimes go along with them and take part in the hunt, something my mom won’t do even though she always goes to the 4-H shooting practices and competitions. Our family knows the importance of being responsible gun owners.
Taylor Zamora is a 7th-grade honors student at Flour Bluff Junior High. She enjoys spending time with her family, riding her horse, playing sports, playing her clarinet, and hanging out with her friends.
Retired from education after serving 30 years (twenty-eight as an English teacher and two years as a new-teacher mentor), Shirley enjoys her life with family and friends while serving her community, church, and school in Corpus Christi, Texas. She is the creator and managing editor of The Paper Trail, an online news/blog site that serves to offer new, in-depth, and insightful responses to the events of the day. She also writes and edits for The Texas Shoreline News, a Corpus Christi print newspaper.