Rachel Lucas linked to the Women and Guns podcast in her post here. She then talked about bad range experiences she had where essentially complete strangers would come up and offer her advice on her form, even when her targets were better than the man’s target.
I’ve seen this as well, often well-meaning guys will offer advice to women on the range, and it just comes off poorly. Seriously, don’t be that guy. No one likes that guy. If someone asks you for help, by all means help them out, but don’t offer unsolicited advice to strangers, especially women because it only furthers the negative “boys club” stereotype that a lot of people have about shooting ranges.
The one caveat is if something unsafe is going down – and then only if an actual Range Officer isn’t there to deal with the situation. Even then, politeness is key, don’t be a dick about it.
The last thing I want to do is turn anyone off to the shooting sports, or to make someone feel so uncomfortable that they don’t come back to the range. By doing that, you’re alienating a shooter, which means she’s not coming to the range (and spending money) which means she’s not shooting as much (and spending money on ammo) which hurts out sport.
