Erika talks about her journey to fem-operator status, and equality:
I don’t know why they wouldn’t link to the original FateOfDestinee video, or even acknowledge that it was her that did it. Just “a girl did a video”… interesting.
Erika has the exact opposite view and experience as FateOfDestinee. Erika is extremely confident though, so i’m sure a lot of guys are scared of her and her skills when they see her at the range. Don’t get me wrong, FateOfDestinee seems confident too, but just on more of a girl next door level.
I still watch all cory07ink’s vids… sure I made fun of a few of them too (for good reasons I think), but Erika has come a very long way. Those two are a tactical power couple if I’ve ever seen one. I’m just waiting for Cory to put a five carat diamond depleted uranium picatinny railed ring with platinum accents with on that finger, and propose to her while repelling from a helicopter into a james-yeager-photographers-down-range-to-capture-the-moment mock gun battle scenario.
Thoughts?
Comments
30 responses to “Erika On Women’s Equality At The Range”
I can’t be sure without talking to Cory or Erika, but there could be a few reasons they didn’t mention destinee. Perhaps they dont like her, perhaps they dont want to try and gain off of her video, who knows. I feel like Erika and Destinee are at completely different ends of the female shooting spectrum.
I don’t know, after that whole Glock melee debacle they just don’t really seem too respectable to me. Just a couple of people that want to pose for pictures, look cool, and bitch and cry when they don’t get fawned on by desperate guys. I’m actually pretty tired of seeing guys on Facebook just trying to show off their girlfriends with guns. There’s a guy on the Gear Whores Anonymous Facebook that posts pictures of his girlfriend with some gun and comments “Too bad, she’s mine” and “Isn’t she hot? You can’t have her.” It’s just pathetic. These two don’t really impress me. They don’t bring anything new to the table and just follow the current trends. They’re advice obviously isn’t based on very much experience (that’s the whole point of the channel) and is certainly not as well-articulated as professional trainers already all over the internet. To be frank, it’s not bad, just buzzword regurgitation and nothing I haven’t heard before.
On a second note, I’m the president of the marksmanship club at my university and almost half of our members are female (hell, our VP is and she’s a better pistol shooter than me). I’ve never seen a single person at the range or in the club talk down to them or even treat them any differently. In fact, several are better shooters than most in the club and plenty of our members are learning. Maybe it’s our young age and relative inexperience, but I don’t think any of us feel like we can’t learn something from one another or any other range-goer. It’s probably different because we’re all friends and we have other things to talk about, but we shoot and laugh and make fun of each other. We don’t have time to be arrogant or prideful. The problem, I think, is that other people are marginalized. When you look at another person that’s psychologically competing with you in an area you’re prideful of, you marginalize them and come up with a way to look down on them. That’s something some people were saying to FateofDestinee– that it happens to everyone. And it’s true, albeit in a different manifestation. Guys at the range sometimes go out of their way to give me advice, and sometimes it’s pretty bad. What for? They just had to add their 2 cents to feel more powerful and put me in a subordinate position. I understand why guys look at girls at the range the way they do–I sure as hell wish my girlfriend wanted to shoot with me (although I appreciate when she listens to me bitch about gear dilemmas). The solution isn’t getting up in arms about it, though. You’ll never be able to make stupid and petty people smart. You just have to realize that people have egos that need stroking and just ignore it. It really does affect guys and girls.
Does anyone else not really want one of these man-jawed range princesses? Who wants to turn their lady into a dude? The masculine should be attracted to the feminine, not change the feminine to the masculine. I’d much rather have a woman who has “Womaned-Up.”
I most certainly do not want some bulky, tobacco chewing girlfriend trying to muscle in on my Mk.318 stash. I don’t get why dudes fawn over these girls.
LOL I wouldn’t want an extreme man-jawed range princess… but finding a girl that enjoyed shooting as something other than a novelty would be a bonus.
I completely agree. Women are women, men are men. Same shenanigans as women liking guys who wear makeup or wear girl jeans.
Nah, I disagree. Self-defense isn’t a “guy’s only” right (and Ruyard Kipling did say that the female of the species is deadlier than the male).
It’s great that guys will pledge to protect their women (and family), but there are really only two types of armed guys who follow women around: security personnel and stalkers. A woman who chooses to carry a gun needs to train as much as any guy does.
Seems to me the problem is more related to the idea of women infiltrating the “men’s club” that is shooting, tactics, etc.
Why do you keep giving these idiots press? You’re blog is losing relevance, it’s nothing more than a collection of youtube links from the same internet kommandos. There is no originality here anymore. This blog is going the way of the $400 AR15 jacket.
I enjoy your comments Andy (or I guess it’s Dave now that you go by?), but if you can’t take 5 seconds out of your day and glance here to see if there’s anything you want to watch/read then you probably should just quit coming. If I only posted when I had premium derp content like Vigilant Spectre to work with, the posts would be a lot less frequent.
she gets high marks for determination and skills. no prob whatsoever with female shooters. in fact, the other weekend I was at a 3 gun and joking I’d be happy to “shoot like a girl” after watching a young lady in our group smoke several stages. she was very skilled and dedicated. BUT the guy standing in front of her while she’s shooting the AK just makes me cringe… that’s an unnecessary and unwise risk. Completely wrong.
If a woman wanted respect on the range, Her shooting should demand it.
In otherwords, shut up and shoot.
Endo-Mike said: “Erika has the exact opposite view and experience as FateOfDestinee. Erika is extremely confident though, so i’m sure a lot of guys are scared of her and her skills when they see her at the range.”
Or maybe their experiences are different because FoD is going to the range alone, while Erika is showing up at the range with Cory. And let’s be real, no one really wants to piss that dude off.
Not sure what’s up with all the sandy vaginas in this thread complaining but I enjoyed Erika’s perspective, I think this blog is what it is and doesn’t need to satisfy anyone. if you don’t like it then go to one of the many other blogs that may fill your every desire. As for this video, I got my wife to see it because I’m trying to get my wife trained and proficient in pistol/ar/shotgun shooting like I’m getting. I got her into one of my nra pistol classes with a bunch of her girlfriends this next weekend..quite a shift from girls night out to a movie and then painting toenails to learning safe firearms handling. I for one am happy with the prevalence of female shooters and the overall growth of gun culture. Both this blog and this post are good contributors to it.
Bring me a beer and a sammich!
When are they going to be honest and drop Cory out of the series title? It’s range time with Ericka’s hams and we all know it.
Title aside they are sharing ideas and learning as they go and I say good for them.
The beauty of YouTube is not that it’s exclusively for some small cadre of perfect angels who know everything and never make mistakes; the beauty of YouTube is that anyone with a camera and something to say can add to the worldwide conversation. The day they filter out all the derp is the day the YouTube dies.
yeah Cory is the No Doubt to Erikas Gwen Stefani.
rite? im waiting for erika vs the clothes eating space zombies.
Valley girl voice alert.
IMO the difference is where they shoot. From the sounds of it Destinee spends most of her time at public ranges, and the worst of the worst indoor public shooting ranges. Quite a number of the people that inhabit those ranges are the people we complain about the most.
While Ericka seems to spend most of her time less public shooting venues. Though some of habits that Destinee complained about it are there, they are less common. Even though women are still fairly uncommon, the crowd that shoots at those ranges tend to be more toward the upper end of the shooting spectrum, and is used to not only shooting with women shooters (I would say that 5-10% of any given match are women shooters).
The only range that really works for my available time range (usually a 30-40+ mi out of way detour after work) is a suburban indoor shooting range. No quick draw, Tuelle run, etc. It is pretty much nothing but gun up, emptying a mag practice. At least it keeps you in practice.
The shooting they were showing in the video is on how to move and shoot. How to be tactical.
Same with gun stores. My local hardware store (7 miles away in the village) still has old guys come in to B.S. They have an FFL but don’t carry. It is all on an order basis. The Ace Hardware is 15 mi. away and has a small inventory on hand. To get the AR-15 you have to order or go about sixty-five miles away to the range and store and get it.
With the target shooting, each has a practical aspect, but neither is the full answer. Same with the gun stores. Each has the general market they cater to, but then they have the people are outside the norm.
I’m a geek. When I have to walk into a Best Buy or similar store I’ll invariably get some sales associate walking up to me saying that is a good laptop, USB, hub, etc. sir. I generally look at them and say “How fast is the write vs. the read on this?” About that time I’m generally left alone. (The exception seems to be Micro-Center. That turns on their geek mode too. ;-)
I won’t say either lady is wrong, just the environment they are in makes the difference.
I am failing to see what gives her “operator” status, though in fairness, I don’t have the patience to sit through these videos because I don’t give a sh*t about an amateur’s thoughts on shooting. Kudos on learning to shoot. Kudos on shelling out ridiculous amounts of money of training schools. When she starts running ops, she can have the title. Otherwise, she is a hobby shooter.
I watched a couple videos. This FOD chick just seems to not be any good.As in,terrible shooter. Erika on the other hand is way better. Respect goes to Erika for not being bitchy and doing what matters.
I know something that she has that is pink that she failed to mention. haha
a gun is a tool. and this website and youtube portray them as toys. Lets go to the range and shoot at steel at a known distance. lame. at 530 this morning i was prone in a hay field waiting for the day to break to kill some half dog/half coyote aminals. and it was fun, i had to guess yards and killed 2 of the 4 adults with a bolt action. it was fun and challenging. i second was hit on the run. ( your gun is not being used properly if your not field dressings something after it goes bang.
Cool story bro; but I must have missed that memo stating that everyone has to employ firearms to the specifications of spencer wade. Last I heard they are a tool that can be used dozens of ways to suit the user. Besides, the only game worth waking up for at 530 in the morning is hide the salami.
those dogs can kill calves and we have about 15 new ones on the ground now. and i know there are more dogs up there cause the cows and calfs stay in a tight group in the middle of the field. they are a predator and duty calls. i do like the range, i have only been to one indoor range in stl and that was to shoot a mp5 full auto it was fun. i live in a rural area so the ranges are just public hunting ground to sight in your gun. I just want to encourage people to do more with there gun. the drills erika and cory are doing are like war time drills and end of days shit. not pratical. ( shoot run to cover shoot, lay on your back and shoot. and the target is 15 to 20 feet.) not my idea of fun.
and the safety nazis talking about these type of drill and what all is going wrong, they are dumb. its when you are walking and stalking is when the real danger happens.
yeah, trying to sneak up on something to withing 12g range, be quiet and watch your feet is kinda tricky. I got some of those wascaly wabbits, but i bet 98% saw me first.
Other than pop cans with an air rifle as a kid, every time i have picked up a gun since is because something had to be killed. With the exception of about 100 rounds at clays. There is a difference between the way spencer and i might look at things compared to tactical paper zombie shooting ninjas.
little bummed that she was shooting in a bikini :(
Interview should have been done naked.