Dakota County Gun Club: Home on the range

Elise Nelson, a freckle-faced 8-year-old from Eagan, sits on a booster cushion on the shooting bench so she can properly position her .22-caliber rifle. She had been waiting patiently in the rain for her turn at the targets.

"The range is hot!" yells the orange-vested range officer, and she takes off the safety and starts loading.

After hearing some family members talk -- Elise had only played around with BB guns -- "she wanted to come and try shooting the bigger guns," said her mom, Lisa Nelson, who was on a BB gun team in her youth and grew up trapping. "She was kind of nervous, but she did well."

Elise was taking part in a bimonthly summer "youth shoot" at the Dakota County Gun Club's range in Rosemount. The youth events started five years ago as a way for club volunteers to work one-on-one with kids, teaching them muscle control, range commands, sighting and breath control.

"There was just a big piece missing for these kids," said club volunteer Bruce Vogelgesang. "You can't go behind the barn and shoot anymore."

Between rounds, Elise and other kids waited out occasional torrents of rain and bouts of lightning and thunder under white canopies, eating cookies and doughnuts while studying their targets, which bloom different colors -- orange, pink, green -- depending on the proximity of the bullet hole to the bullseye.

"It's not my best, but it's good enough," said Zelphia Peterson, 15, of Rosemount, as she added up the points on her 10-bull target: 173. Now at marksman level, she needs to shoot four of these in a row with scores above 165 to move to the next level.

The shooters use single-shot .22 rifles, which, as Vogelgesang said, "slows 'em down a little bit and makes 'em aim more."

"Otherwise, they're just throwing lead down the range," said volunteer Dan Graffunder of Newport.

Graffunder said he adjusts his teaching to connect with kids. For example, to describe how to line up the bullseye on the center mast, he talks about setting a golf ball on a tee or putting a pumpkin on a fencepost. "You have to think in their terms," said Graffunder. "It gets challenging."

Matt Weber of Farmington shoots during the summers at his family cabin in Wyoming. He brought his son, Kayden, 7, out to the range. "I think it's good to connect guns with safety," he said. "It makes it a little more real for them. It's not just a game."

"I think it teaches them confidence and a new skill," said Tim Hierlmaier of Apple Valley, whose daughter was practicing archery to the south of the shooting range. "These guys are very good at helping them learn the fundamentals of safety. Even if they don't hunt or fish, it's a good idea for them to do it because friends have those things in their homes."

Todd Ringhand used to hunt quite a bit. He brought his daughters. His son, Brandon, 12, plans to attend the Minnesota deer hunters' summer camp. "He's going to push me back into hunting," he said. "He's got a passion for that."

"I was terrified of guns," said Zelphia Peterson. "I wouldn't go near them." She eased up after she saw that "they weren't going to let me wave the gun around."

"It's a lot of fun," she said. "I can hit the target and people think it's cool."

And, she said, "I can outshoot my dad."

Liz Rolfsmeier is a Minneapolis freelance writer.