Now, I should say I did not do this because I had suddenly become convinced that the CIA was after me, or because I wanted to intentionally violate the sixth commandment (in addition to the first four I'm already breaking). Actually, I'm not really into the whole self-defense schtick. Even now, after I've gone to range a dozen times and shot a thousand rounds, I still can't really imagine myself in a scenario where my safety is threatened, and my having a gun in my hand is more likely to help than to hurt the situation. Maybe this will change after I improve, but for the moment I won't load it in the house even if the spetsnaz comes through my front door. I'll just surrender and hope they don't rape me too thoroughly, as even that would be better than my obituary reading, "He shot himself in the gut thinking his roommate was a burglar." So, it's not for protection.
I've never been hunting, and while I might theoretically do it someday since I'm not a vegan or anything, I don't have any plans to any time in the near future. Outdoor sports... eh. Also, I think as a rule I could only shoot animals which are at least mean-spirited and hopefully also pose some sort of physical threat to me. Why anyone sees a deer minding its own beautiful fucking woodland creature business in a serene clearing, and thinks "the .22 or the .38?" is beyond me. I mean, with bears, I get it. Anyway, that's not why I bought a gun either.
Mostly, I just wanted something to do.
See, my girlfriend had dumped me, and I found myself with a lot of time on my idle hands. Now, in that situation I usually pick some absurd hobby and dive in to it - in the past, I've gotten into vegetable gardening, guitar and counted cross stitch, but this time I wanted something that... well, rocked the cock. Plus, I'm a six foot gawky white math nerd with 350 digits of pi tattooed on my right arm, so there's a certain humor in finding myself buying gun magazines with mullet-sporting blondes on the cover and seriously considering the purchase of a two DVD set on advanced techniques for the tactical carbine (not to learn them, but just because it is bad...ass...).
This being an impulse purchase, I have to admit I did not exactly do the best shopping. Basically, I googled the closest gun store, walked in and asked for something in the "$200 to $300 range". Which is like going into a whorehouse and asking for something in the "$20 to $30 range", in that you will get something...
What I got at the gun store was a Smith and Wesson Nine Millimeter Sigma Pistol; I spelled that all out, and it was still ten bucks a letter. That's the thing about this hobby... not cheap. Still, I like to think it's a good piece to learn on. Piece... I like the sound of that. Oddly appropriate too considering it is one of those cheap throwaway plastic-and-steel handguns used in gang shootouts.
When you take it apart, there are just four big chunks, and they each have simple descriptive names - receiver, barrel, spring, slide. I watched a friend of mine take his Beretta apart once, and there were dozens of little metal bits that a toddler could choke on, but I would totally let a toddler take my S & W apart. Perhaps that was part of the design parameters. Not in those parameters? A safety! So, again, not a plus in a self defense context, but awesome if you need to come out the drop blazin'.
Florida law said I had to wait three days, but although I was excited to pick it up, I wasn't ready to go to the range right away. When they first brought it out from behind the counter in its blue plastic case, I was nervous about picking it up, afraid to even touch it. I took it home, and read the manual cover to cover. Well, just the parts in English. About operation and safety. That didn't look too boring or have garish red font. Alright, I may have skimmed the manual, but I really intended to read it from cover to cover.
I did, however take it apart and put it back together a dozen times. Then I tried dry firing it, and quickly discovered that natural impulse that most people have to put their fingers on the trigger of a gun when picking it up. One of the biggest gun safety rules, needless to say, is to keep your finger outside of the trigger guard until you are definitely ready to fire the weapon. So, I dry fired it over and over, and practiced picking it up and transferring it from hand to hand, and loading and unloading the clip, and working the slide, until I felt like I knew the thing inside and out. Only then was I ready to fire it without killing myself.
So, I googled the nearest gun range, which turned out to be this lovely establishment:
Now, here's where it starts adding up. At the range, a box of fifty rounds costs $13 - at Wal-Mart, you can get them for $10, but they are almost never in stock. One of these boxes will last me about half an hour, but for a good shoot I will go through more. The range fee is $10, unless you buy an annual membership for $150 (which I did). Paper targets are cheap, fifty cents each, but I use the Shoot-N-Cs which cost a few dollars each, because you can see where the shot went without retrieving the target. I shudder, frankly, to think of the money I've spent so far, and it makes my value gun shopping seem even that much more ridiculous considering I have probably spent more one ammo by now.
My gun has what's called an internal hammer, which means that you can't do that cool action movie slow-cocking-whilst-hiding-in-an-air-duct suspense thing. Every shot is double action - pulling the trigger back cocks the hammer and then releases it - so that the trigger pull is really long. Which I feel actually helps me practice pulling the trigger smoothly... See, the one thing I have learned about shooting thus far is this - aiming is not really the hard part. The sights on my gun are easy to see (at least during the day), and actually lining them up and putting them over the target is pretty trivial. The real art of the thing is the way your hand reacts to the motion of the gun in that split second that it is in action. In that moment, that blink, it sends 7.5 grams of copper-coated-lead out one end at 750 miles per hour, while ejecting the spent brass and inserting another round from the magazine - and if you grip it just right, and stand just right, and breath just right, and hold your arms just so, you can make it do all that and come right back to where it started without a hiccup. And that's what puts holes in bullseyes.
I started this blog to record this and other lessons I learn along the way, and perhaps get more "unlikely gun nuts" involved. I've found the people at gun stores and gun shows to be friendly, but a bit... intense. I asked a man one time what the point in buying a silencer was, since you can't legally hunt with them in Florida, and I didn't think you would need to assassinate a burglar all Jason Bourne-style. Without skipping a beat, he responded, "Defend my home, and my ears." Short, declarative sentence, no subject - you could almost see his heels clip together for a sharp heil. He was right, of course, but the point is these guys can be a little intimidating, especially if you haven't been around guns your whole life.
I had never fired a gun two months ago, and I took a bit of a chance buying one, but I have to say I really love doing this stuff. I feel like I want to keep going with it, and I'd like to buy some bigger guns like rifles, automatics and shotguns. I've already started reloading, too, and as I try to figure it all out I'll write about it up here - hopefully with a little humor and approachability. So, look for that.
Finally, I suppose I should say something about crime. I've been a victim of gun violence myself - in 2005, I was mugged at gunpoint less than a hundred feet from my front door. I remember the experience as being extremely traumatic, and I don't intend anything I write here to belittle the far more severe tragedies of others. I like to think I've made it clear in the above that the only time I intend to fire my weapon is in the context of a legal range, and that I'm not even certain I would or could use it for effective self defense, let alone aggression. So, please, no hate mail.
It's a crazy little country we live in... At any given time, less than half of it is always doing something that is pissing the rest of it off, justly or not, and the only thin veil of protection that minority has is a crumbling piece of paper signed more than two hundred years ago. History has shown that even as people receive that protection themselves, it does not prevent them from attacking the rights of others. So, I don't expect (for example) every woman who freely exercises her constitutionally protected right to control her reproduce system to respect my second amendment rights, although I hope most thinking people can see the connection between the two... in that a gun and a uterus are equally dangerous for society in the long run. That was a joke, long walkaround, thanks for hanging in. Seriously, I really don't have time to read the hate mail.
