TCTC senior takes aim for gun safety
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HOWLAND -- Teens can hunker down for hours on couches mashing controller buttons to blast electronic targets into explosions of pixels.
Or they can be like Cathy McCauley, who, on a chilly Friday afternoon, lined up her Smith & Wesson .22-caliber long-barrel pistol on a paper target across an expanse of a soppy green yard surrounded by the woods of the Vienna Fish and Game Club. This is not the virtual world. It's the real live outdoors for this girl and her gun.
"For me, it's relaxing," the 18-year-old Trumbull Career and Technical Center senior said. "Just the feeling of holding a gun in your hand and knowing what to do."
The Trumbull County Shooting Sports Pioneers 4-H club, of which she is president, also has among its membership archers launching arrows at animal-shaped foam targets, youth firing rifles at paper targets and taking aim with shotguns at clay pigeons slung like Frisbees from a throwing arm.
McCauley's practiced archery and the long guns. "I tried shotgun once, and I didn't like it because it was heavy," she said.
She prefers the pistol and has gone to the Ohio State Fair with her pistol project.
But only with paper targets
"I don't hunt. I don't like killing animals."
TAKING INTEREST
A friend introduced her older brother to the shooting sports 4-H club.
"My sister and I saw it and wanted to join," she said. "When I was old enough, I did."
Her grandfather's initial response when they did: "But … they're girls."
McCauley said that while the club has had more boys than girls over the years and is about 75 percent boys now, the numbers are starting to even out with more girls joining.
"I think it's a good experience. I think if a girl wants to shoot a gun, go do it," she said.
It's the same with the welding program in which she is enrolled at TCTC, as one of four girls out of 21 seniors in the welding program. Seven of the 25 juniors in welding are female, she said.
"One of my friends was talking about it in Howland (High School)," she said. "I heard fire, hot stuff and big money, and I did it. I'm hoping to get a job (as a welder). I don't know what kind of welding yet."
None of this is about breaking barriers or getting political, she said.
"It's not a statement; it's a choice," her mother and 4-H club adviser Virginia Eltman said. It's about following passions and dreams.
4-H LEADERSHIP
McCauley has served as president of the Trumbull County Shooting Sports Pioneers 4-H club the last two years, and was the 2020 president of the Trumbull County Junior Fair Board. She was on the 4-H Ohio Teen Leadership Council in 2018-19 and helped with competitions at the Ohio State Fair. McCauley also has served as a 4-H camp counselor besides taking leadership roles in her local club.
"The first thing we do in this club is safety. Once you know the safety, as long as you follow the rules, it's safe," McCauley said.
She works with younger club members to make sure safety is top priority.
In her nine years in Trumbull County 4-H, McCauley has exhibited a number of projects, from cake decorating and scrapbooking to rabbits and guinea pigs, and competed in the Rabbit Bowl at the state level in 2018.
She has one guinea pig and 13 rabbits, and the family just got chickens.
She mostly shows Mini Rex rabbits ("They're just so soft") and some Mini Lops with the Funny Farm Rabbit 4-H club."I love all my rabbits. They've go so many personalities," she said.
McCauley also volunteered at the Trumbull County Dog Pound as part of Howland High School's Paws with a Cause. She walked dogs and got the Shooting Sports club to collect dog food, treats and toys for the dogs.
HIGH SCHOOL
At Howland High School, where she was an honors student, McCauley was in the Art Club and Interact Club in her sophomore year, and for two years was in the German Club and in honors history.
She also played cymbals on the drum line of the Howland High School band for two years but said she didn't care for that so much so gave it up.
Outside of school, McCauley was an altar server at St. Williams Catholic Church the past two years and volunteered several times at the St. Vincent de Paul dining hall thrift store. She's also been known to help neighbors in need.
"Cathy is always willing go help. She comes to our house several times a week to do weed whacking, moving heavy items which my husband and I cannot handle," her grandmother Theresa Eltman said.
GUN RESTRICTIONS
McCauley doesn't walk around with a gun strapped to her hip.
When not at the shooting range, the guns are locked up.
TV shows get it wrong, she said. "They carry around loaded guns and whip them out firing." Plus shooters on TV and in the movies tend to hold their guns at torso level, not eye level to sight a shot.
She disagrees with attempts to put more restrictions on possession of firearms.
"I think we're good (now)," McCauley said. " I don't think they should limit it too much. I think it's good. We go through background checks."
Club co-founder and adviser Larry Beardsley, who was in a 4-H welding club 60 years ago with one of McCauley's great-uncles, said shooting clubs for youth are a good teaching and safety tool.
"Shooting clubs help demystify guns," Beardsley said. "If a kid has a chance to handle a gun, then he doesn't need to dig through the sock drawer to find one and try it out, without supervision. Let kids experience things under supervision; then they aren't trying things on their own."
McCauley agreed with the assessment.
Members of the 4-H club have project books to learn about the workings of firearms, set goals like working for a tighter grouping of target shots, and do reports on special interest topics related to shooting.
It's more about the basics and developing the skills, not a competition, Beardsley said. For youth who want to try competitive shooing, the Vienna Fish and Game Club fields one of the top junior rifle teams in the state, he said.
The annual 4-H judging is based on general knowledge, not shooting demonstrations, especially because firearms are not permitted at the fair.
McCauley is about to age out of 4-H and soon will be heading off to a job as a welder.
She plans to keep on shooting.
"I want to make sure it's still one of my hobbies," McCauley said.
"I don't think I'll ever get good enough to do competition." She paused. "Maybe."