This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Three teenagers from Ashe County, North Carolina just competed at the 4-H Shooting Sports National Championships against 731 kids from 42 states. Muzzleloader, pistol, air pistol — these aren't kids plinking at cans. They're doing serious work.

"Imagine trying to shoot a ram at 100 yards, 11 inches high, while standing up."

That's coach Charles Young describing the muzzleloader silhouette event — and he's not exaggerating the difficulty. Standing unsupported at 100 yards with a muzzleloader, on a timed stage, against competitors who've been doing this since they were single digits in age. That's a real marksmanship test by any standard.

"A lot of the technique stays the same. All of the fundamentals are essentially the same."

He's right, and this is something you figure out fast if you shoot multiple disciplines. The grip, the trigger press, the sight picture — they don't care what's in your hands. The shooters who struggle to cross over are usually the ones who've been compensating for bad fundamentals with a familiar platform.

The part worth noting: the national format requires competitors to cross over into other disciplines once they qualify. That's not just logistically interesting — it's genuinely good for developing shooters. Nothing exposes a weakness in your fundamentals faster than picking up an unfamiliar gun.

Did you come up through a youth shooting program, or were you self-taught or range-taught as an adult — and looking back, which do you think built better fundamentals?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Florida just joined the open carry column, and the legal landscape there is tighter than most people realize going in.

"If a private landowner or a private business clearly states that you are not allowed to carry a gun, and someone at the establishment says that you have to leave, you have to leave. If you don't leave then you become what's known as an armed trespasser and that is a third degree felony in the State of Florida, which is a very, very serious felony."

That's not a technicality — that's a felony charge waiting for someone who thinks standing their ground in a Walgreens parking lot makes them a patriot. The right to carry doesn't override a private property owner's right to kick you out, and confusing those two things in Florida now has real consequences.

Five-plus years for refusing to leave a business. Read that sentence again before you strap on a full-size pistol and head to a strip mall in Tampa.

For Idaho folks who travel, this is worth understanding before you visit. We've got our own framework here — constitutional carry, private property rules that work similarly — but Florida's enforcement environment and their felony threshold for armed trespass makes this a situation where the margin for "I didn't know" is basically zero.

Anyone been to Florida recently or planning a trip — curious how the open carry shift is being received down there at gun shops and ranges, and whether businesses are actually posting notices or just assuming people know the rules.

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Short article, so I'll keep this tight — but the fraud angle here is worth talking about even if you're hunting nowhere near New York.

"Tag fraud has apparently been real enough to warrant regulatory teeth: hunters misreporting harvests or gaming the reporting system undercuts the data DEC uses to set future limits."

This is the part that should bother every hunter regardless of state. Population modeling is only as good as the harvest data going into it — if guys are sandbagging kills or double-dipping tags, the rest of us eventually pay for it through tighter limits or shorter seasons built on bad numbers.

"What those mechanisms look like in practice — mandatory electronic reporting, check station requirements, or something else — will determine how much friction this adds for honest hunters."

That's the real question. Idaho's already moved toward mandatory electronic reporting for certain species, and it's mostly painless if you've got cell service. The guys who hate it are usually the same guys who "forget" to report — which tells you something.

Have you run into mandatory electronic harvest reporting in any state you've hunted, and did it actually change anything about your experience in the field?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The NRA Foundation is suing the NRA. Not an outside group, not a regulator — its own charitable arm is taking the parent organization to court over how money was handled.

"The NRA Foundation filed suit in Virginia federal court Thursday, alleging the NRA siphoned away foundation funds and used it as a 'piggy bank.'"

That money was earmarked for range safety programs, youth shooting sports, hunter education — the stuff that actually grows the shooting community at the grassroots level. If those funds got redirected to keep the lights on at headquarters or cover legal bills, that's not just bad optics, that's a potential IRS problem.

The piece makes a distinction a lot of shooters don't think about — the Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charity, the NRA is a 501(c)(4) advocacy org. Different rules, different legal obligations. Mixing those up on purpose isn't a bookkeeping error, it's the kind of thing that ends tax-exempt status.

"Whatever you think of the NRA's politics, this is exactly the kind of internal financial dispute that weakens an advocacy organization at a time when the legal battles over gun rights need a steady hand."

Hard to argue with that. Litigation is expensive and distracting, and the NRA is already fighting the New York AG on one flank. Every dollar going to lawyers is a dollar not going to Bruen follow-up cases or state-level fights.

Has any of this changed how you personally approach NRA membership, donations, or whether you direct your money toward other organizations like the Second Amendment Foundation or ISAA instead?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

A retired P&G marketing director just bought a Cincinnati range and is calling it a "training-first" business. That phrase gets thrown around a lot at grand openings.

"When I think about it, I spent my entire career building brands and businesses at Procter, but when this opportunity became available, I thought it was a chance to build something meaningful for Cincinnati and just thought there was room for a training-first type of business."

The brand-building background isn't a red flag by itself — some of the best range experiences I've had came from operators who thought hard about how a first-timer walks through the door. The question is whether the curriculum backs up the pitch or whether "training-first" just means a nicer rental counter.

Anyone here been through a range that changed ownership from a traditional shooter-run operation to someone with a retail or hospitality background — did the culture shift work out, or did it feel like the range stopped being built for people who actually shoot?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Seven hundred competitors, 42 states, nine disciplines — and most people at your average gun shop have never heard of this event. The 4-H Shooting Sports Nationals ran last month in Grand Island, and Iowa sent 20 kids across six disciplines.

"Youth learn responsibility, sportsmanship and perseverage, and those lessons stay with them long after the event is over."
— Scott Stuhr, 4-H Shooting Sports national coordinator

That's true, and it undersells the technical side. These kids are running air rifle, smallbore, muzzleloaders, shotgun — not just punching paper once and calling it a day. Structured coaching and match pressure will teach a young shooter things that a range trip with dad, however well-intentioned, usually won't.

The muzzleloader entry caught my eye — three competitors from East Pottawattamie County. There's something right about a program that still runs kids through the discipline of a charge, patch, and ball before they ever touch a modern rifle.

Anyone here have kids or grandkids who came up through 4-H Shooting Sports? Curious whether the local club coaching made a noticeable difference once they moved into adult competition or just general range habits.

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Tiered licensing is one of those proposals that sounds measured until you think about what it actually means. A candidate running for Senate in Texas just had a 2020 recording surface where he laid out the full wishlist — and the tiered system piece is the one that deserves the most scrutiny.

"Representative Talarico's proposal would turn a constitutional right into a government permission slip. The Constitution does not create first-class and second-class citizens, and GOA will oppose any attempt to treat law-abiding gun owners that way."

That framing is accurate. A tiered system doesn't ban anything outright — it just creates a bureaucratic layer between you and access, where the government decides which tier you qualify for and what that tier allows. We've seen how that plays out in states with "may issue" carry permit structures. The answer is usually "no" unless you know someone.

"He also backed a 'tiered certification system for gun licensure' — though he gave no specifics on how firearms or owners would be sorted into tiers."

The vagueness is the tell. When a politician wants to sell a restriction, they keep it abstract until after they have the votes. "Tiered" could mean anything from a clean background check upgrade to a licensing board deciding whether your AR has a legitimate sporting purpose — and once that infrastructure exists, the criteria can be tightened without passing new law.

This isn't a Texas-only issue. One Senate seat is one vote on federal legislation, and there's been no shortage of federal gun bills waiting for a closer margin.

If a tiered federal licensing system passed — whatever that ended up looking like in practice — what would it actually change about how you currently buy, own, or carry?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Pennsylvania hunting license structure isn't something most Idaho shooters lose sleep over, but the fee-setting angle here has implications worth watching — western states have wrestled with the same tension between agency autonomy and legislative control on everything from tag prices to season structures.

"If we don't have oversight in the legislature to be able to weigh in or keep certain costs down, then we lose a part of the voice of the people that elect us."

That's a fair concern, and not just in Pennsylvania. Once an agency can set its own fees without a legislative vote, the pressure to raise them quietly — especially when a $500 million reserve starts drawing attention from people who want that money spent — goes up considerably. The Fish and Boat comparison is instructive: two raises in two years after getting that authority.

The five-day nonresident deer license for former Pennsylvania residents is an interesting angle too. $30 for a five-day rifle deer hunt versus $101.97 for a full nonresident license is a meaningful difference, and structuring it around birth or prior residency is a clever way to bring lapsed hunters back into the system without opening the door wide to general nonresident discounts.

For anyone who's watched Idaho's tag draw system or license fee debates at the Fish and Game level — does legislative oversight over agency fees actually protect hunters, or does it just slow down funding adjustments until the agency has to play catch-up all at once?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Magazine capacity limits are one of those debates that stays theoretical until it suddenly isn't. This incident in Cambridge put a real face on what "10-round limit" actually means when the shooting starts.

"Eight rounds is obviously not enough for an extended gunfight against a criminal who came prepared with multiple magazines."

Most defensive encounters don't go eight rounds — but this one did, and the guy on the right side of it ran dry. You don't get to negotiate the terms of the fight you're actually in.

The detail that sticks with me: the responding trooper almost certainly showed up with a P320 loaded to 17 rounds. The Marine who bought time for that trooper to arrive was running at roughly half that capacity — by law. Same state, same highway, same threat — two different magazine allowances based entirely on who your employer is.

That asymmetry isn't a bug in the policy. It's what the policy produces. The shooter came loaded. The defender came legally compliant.

For those of us who carry daily, this is the math that matters. You leave the house with what you've got, and you cannot predict whether your day is a two-round problem or a twelve-round problem. Massachusetts residents who carry can't even make that call for themselves.

For anyone who carries or has trained for a defensive scenario — how do you think about round count when you set up your carry rig in the morning?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Short article, so I'll keep this tight. Utah just shut down target shooting on WMAs across 17 counties, and the fire numbers driving that decision are hard to argue with.

"With the extreme dry conditions, any spark can start a fire. With firearm target shooting, sparks from metal targets, a bullet or other projectiles glancing off a rock is all it takes to cause a spark and a fire."

310,000 acres burned already — more than the last four years combined — and two WMA fires in 2020 were traced directly to target shooting. That's not speculation, that's paperwork. If you've ever seen what a ricochet off a rock does at a desert range in August, you know exactly what Edgley is describing.

The order is worth reading carefully before you head out. Legal carry, transport, and hunting aren't touched — this is specifically about target shooting on WMA land in those 17 counties. Lee Kay and Cache Valley are still open, and the order gets reviewed every two weeks, so it's not necessarily a permanent summer situation.

For anyone who does most of their practice on WMA ground — have you already shifted to one of the state ranges, or do you have a private spot that's not affected?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Two sisters from Powell showed up to a national rifle championship and competed in a discipline their home state doesn't even run. That's worth talking about.

"I had never practiced silhouettes until the week of the competition and I took sixth."

Sixth place nationally in an event you've never trained for. That's not luck — that's fundamentals. If your position, trigger control, and follow-through are solid, you can adapt to new target formats faster than most people expect. Silhouettes at distance will expose any wobble you've been hiding, and she still placed.

What stands out to me is the two-week prep strategy — sitting down with the rulebook before you ever touch the equipment. I've watched plenty of shooters walk into matches they didn't bother to understand and then wonder why they're confused during the relay. Knowing the format cold before you show up is one of those low-cost advantages most people skip.

Nine years in 4-H, and Esther's parting comment was about how good her younger sister is getting. That's the kind of thing you hear from shooters who've actually been around the sport long enough to care more about the next generation than their own scorecard.

For anyone with kids or younger shooters in your circle — did 4-H or any structured youth program play a role in how they got started, and do you think it translated to how they shoot today?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett