Michelle finally snapped. Kidding. After a long week of cranking out another edition, not to mention building up a lot of resentment and bile, we need a release. God help me, I did not realize what I was getting into when I mentioned to Lee, the photog, that I was nervous about looking like a doofus when the Community Academy does the firing range test. After all, I had never fired a gun before in my life.
Lee offered to take me to the firing range and teach me basic gun safety and firing. Colello's head popped up. "You goin' to the range? Where do you shoot?" Next thing I know Michelle is mentioning that she has never fired a gun before and Ric is thinking he'd like to come along. A regular journalism armada is fixing to converge on the shooting range.
Oh, and we didn't go to just any shooting range, no sirree bob, we went to the Bullseye. The Bullseye is one of those gun stores that gets the tag "nuisance." A lot of guns are stolen from there (ahem) every year and end up being used in crimes. Most infamously, the gun that was used by the D.C. sniper pair came from Bullseye. This is not a place where I can feel my dollars were spent bettering the world.
So we get to Bullseye after deadline and Colello rents an AR-15. The AR stands for assault rifle. That's why we're all messing around with this gun. Because we bad.
Indeed, it is bad to pose with guns as if you are a badass. It is particularly bad when you're the product of Quaker schools.
Michelle's from Parkland, and she recently moved from the Gangsta Hellscape of Monterra Apartments so she can get away with this stuff.
So Lee took more photos, which I hope to get copies of to share with you, of us all acting completely inappropriately (all of which was egged on by the Air Force small arms instructor behind the counter). Then we put on our eye and ear protection and went to the range. Well, minus Ric, who had some sort of thing to do with his kids.
Lee and Michael went straight for the gun assembly and loading. Lee fired off a few rounds of his 45 then, because he is a Marine (apparently they're never "former" marines), helped Michael get his rifle loaded and ready to go. Then Lee brought me over to booth 12 to learn to fire a gun.
I learned to load a clip, to hold the gun pointed downrange while I slid that clip up in the magazine with conviction, keeping the trigger finger on the guard until ready to shoot. Then there's this "BRASS" acronym to remember about Breathe, Relax, Sight and Squeeze. Or maybe it's squeeze and shoot and you're just supposed to remember to sight. I dunno. It's about staying calm and then letting the big bang happen.
And a 45 releases a big bang. It didn't kick back as violently as I was expecting, but you feel the vibes go from your wrists to your elbows and through your chest. The brass casings fly out and ping against the stall walls and may pop you on the head or the shoulder or something. There's a killer flash from the barrel. It only takes a moment, and it's very surprising and powerful. I got little red marks between my thumb and index finger on my right hand from the kickback.
I'm not a big fan of the 45.
The AR-15 is a different story. It uses 9mm ammo, so there's no big kickback like the 45 (Lee likes the 45 for its ability to knock over the target. But I think a bullet is a bullet and whatever makes you less freaked out to fire is probably the right handgun to go for, if you're going to go for a handgun). You sight it up, hold the barrel and the grip, put in a ridiculously long clip and boom-boom-boom. The target is toast.
This is how I did with the 45.
I got a little sloppy at the end, when my arms were getting tired, but I like the way that there's a bullet hole nestled under the X in the bullseye. I could be a very good shooter if I wanted. But, I'm not a gun person. I liked shooting that rifle a lot more than I thought I would; I didn't like that it pulled to the left. But I'm not a gun owner, and I don't like the responsibility of holding something that could blow someone's face off, accidently or on purpose. Doesn't mean I won't shoot again, but I'll never be a gun nut.
1 comment:
It's hard to determine a shot pattern here since shot patterns occur in groups of threes. But that definitely is a bullseye and if you were firing from 50 yds., well, that's pretty good shooting. But it's better to know its proximity to the shots in its group of three. If one was wildly off the mark, not so good. The idea is to pretty much put them in the same place but there will be a bit of variation because of the effect of breathing and the fact that your body just won't hold still. The feet are not a very stable platform -- much better to lie down or lean against something if trying to hit an actual target. Anyway, you had fun. You weren't drunk and you didn't shoot anyone in the face. I call that a successful outing.
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