George’s father passed away last year and left behind a small collection of guns, much to his mother’s dismay. And to be honest, much to my dismay as well. My dad is a police officer, so I grew up with guns in the house, but always with the understanding that I stay 100 miles away…this is there they live, do not disturb. And I never did disturb.
The idea of killing things has never set well with me. Neither people nor animals. I also can’t quite embrace the idea of having a gun for “protection.” I’ll listen to the debate, and I truly am willing to learn about both sides of the story. But even with some of the smartest people I know telling me how appropriate it is, I can’t help but think, won’t having a gun just give an assailant a reason to shoot you when otherwise they would have just taken the money and run? (Then again, it seems around Cleveland it’s open season on unarmed mugging victims…oh there are about 200 sides to this story…that’s another post…or maybe someone else’s who is more knowledgeable than I)
Here’s the thing. The idea of simply shooting a gun is intriguing to me. At a target. Not for deadly purpose, but for the skill factor, and, well, I like things that make big booms. There. I said it. The quick draw Buffalo-Bill-Annie-Oakley thing, well, friggin’ awesome. Right?
George did the responsible thing and purchased a big safe, and then carefully went through each gun with me showing me how to approach it safely and verify that it is unloaded. I will not say this made me feel all that great still, but it was a baby step.
Many months have passed, and he brought up the fact that there is a shooting range near by called Stonewall that offers hand gun classes. He was definitely going to take it. Would I like to? I think he expected me to pass and that he would have to pressure me into it, but I instantly knew this would be a good thing for me. We have these in our house. I need to know how to use them to feel safer. Sign me up. Oh! And invite your brother Pete! It was his birthday after all. We had fun 🙂
6 hours and 12 fired hand guns later, I can’t tell you the incredible difference in my overall comfort with these things. I have to say that the only thing I really wanted to know, was in detail how to determine when a gun is safe, and when it is unsafe, and how to make it safe. I got all of that information, AND I learned how to use them. While in the classroom portion, I felt I was amongst the top students. I had excellent form, was a quick study in loading, unloading, cocking, slide locking…one of my classmates indicated that he would not want to meet me in a dark alley. Awesome. The previous night I did have a dream that I showed up for class and showed myself to be a natural…a prodigy…sure-shot baddass.
We finished up in the classroom, went out to the range to take a supervised stab at the various varieties of handguns we had discussed…and I was lucky I hit the target…sometimes. Ha! Yep…I was pretty terrible. Couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, as they say. But our instructor Mike said I just needed practice. I had the information in my head, and I just needed to train my eyes, hands, arms and gut to do the actual work. But I think that the biggest thing I got out of this class was the confidence that I could in fact live in a house with guns around and feel confident and safe. That is true with many things, from motorcycles to kitchen knives. If people are taught to properly respect the risk involved, and just as importantly, learn how to use these things properly, the chance of injury decreases dramatically. It all makes the idea of keeping your children completely away from any and all dangerous activities…letting them live in the bliss of ignorance…a pretty dangerous thing in itself.
So about a month later, with a few trips to “Lady’s Night” at the range under my belt, here is what I have to show for it.
Ten shots at 25' with the Browning
You can see my first couple of hesitant shots on the lower right, but then...yay!
THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about. Never in my life did I picture myself a Wednesday night regular at a pistol range. Truly a great bit of random dabbling.
xo
en