Oh Shoot

So I have accomplished exactly zero of my three vacation goals. Goal one was to lay out the print version of The Grand Conspiracy. Meh, I never felt inspired, that felt too much like actual work-work. Goal two was to clean out the horrible (used to be) walk-in closet in my office. It’s so crammed full of random purses and shoes and craft supplies that I can’t actually walk into it any more. I really never felt inspired to do that either, because that sounds like I might get sweaty and/or dirty and/or injured. Maybe in January. Goal three was… ummm… wait. I am sure there was a goal three? OK, that’s sad. I unaccomplished it so hard that I forgot it entirely. Or wait – maybe I accomplished it and then forgot what it was because I was done? We can go with that.

So anyway, two weeks off, and no official goals accomplished, which should have me feeling aggravated with myself, but it doesn’t. I had a great vacation, lazed around, drank too much, hung out with my friends and cuddled my chihuahuas. And that’s enough for me.

The other thing I have done with my vacation is learn to shoot stuff. Which I like surprisingly much. I’ve always kind of been interested in having a gun, but didn’t have anyone to show me safety stuff, and how they work, and advise me on what might be the right type of gun for me. As such, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to just go randomly buying a gun and try to figure out on my own how to use it, nor did I have any idea how to do so even if it had been a good idea. Luckily a friend of mine’s husband is a giant gun geek, and leapt at the opportunity to  have a new victim avid trainee. He’s taken me out shooting several times, and it’s really very fun. I was intimidated at the prospect of shooting a gun, sure it would blow up in my hand or knock me down, or both. But before we ever went out shooting, Pete had me over to handle his guns (not a euphemism) so that I would be familiar with what we would be shooting. The amount of firepower he had laid out on his kitchen table made me feel vaguely as if I was attending a militia meeting, or doing something of a covert, anti-government nature. And then he showed me pictures of people with their thumbs blown off, to emphasize we’d actually be doing dangerous things, in case I had not realized.

So the first time we went out we went to an outdoor range. There were a variety of people there, of all flavors of crazy and undesirable, so that was kinda weird. There was a guy shooting one handgun in each fist, really quickly and really badly. There was a guy with a neck tattoo who was surely fresh from prison. I shot a bunch of different handguns and IIRC two rifles and a shotgun. The shotgun was cool in how it decimated the target, but uncool in how it whacked me in the shoulder, so that was my least favorite. But overall it was not bad, and nobody shot their eye out, and it was not unpleasant and I was not retarded at it, so that was good.

Then we progressed to shooting handguns only, at an indoor range much closer to where I live. (Climate control, FTW.) Anyway, it turns out that the simplicity of a revolver is appealing to me over the complexity of a semi-automatic pistol. It’s comfortably old fashioned in some way. Open the cylinder, put the cartridges in, shoot the gun, eject the casings, not a lot to go wrong with that. The one I liked best was a Taurus 686 with a 6″ barrel. To look at, it seems a little over the top and vaguely Dirty Harry, but to shoot it’s really nice. I liked some other handguns, but that was my favorite, until last week when I started shooting 9mm. I liked a Glock 34 that Pete had, but I fell in love with a Springfield XD, which was extremely fun to shoot. So anyway, shooting stuff is cool and pretty fun and I do not suck at it.

So the next step is to go buy a gun, right? Or at least go window shopping for one. And that’s where my experience of guns and my experience of gun culture run afoul of each other. Because seriously, we went to three gun shops, and the first two were full of such a variety of inbred felonious-looking miscreants, I could barely stay in them. The third one was better because I refused to look at or listen to anyone else there. But seriously at the first one I was with both Pete and our other friend Chris, and they were both “Hey look at this gun.” and I was all “Hey no, look at that GUY.” Seriously. It was all neck tattoos and camouflage coveralls. At the second place there was a St. Charles sherrif’s deputy who felt no compunction regarding making anti-gay comments, while in uniform. Really guy? That’s awesome. So that was difficult to deal with, and made it hard for me to pay attention to guns we were looking at. And really, after awhile it does become kind of, ok here’s a gun, here’s another gun, oh my, look at that gun, yeah here’s another one, and it’s just a big blur. The other thing is that I’ve been able to shoot quite a variety of guns by this point, and I know that until you actually shoot it, you don’t know if you will like it. It might feel OK in your hand, but you don’t really know if it’s right for you until you fire it. It’s like buying a car solely by kicking the tires. You need to test drive it, to really make a good decision.

Of course then we went to the third place and I fell in love with the Smith & Wesson version of the Taurus that I already liked, and now have my sights set on a rather expensive gun. Which I will probably buy if it’s still there when I go back. (Fate, right? It’s like handbags and shoes – if you’re still thinking about them a week later, you’re allowed to have them.)

But now I have gone from being someone who has no guns to being someone who’s pretty sure she needs at least three. And that feels mildly strange. I don’t know if that makes me a gun person necessarily. I do not plan on purchasing any camo coveralls or getting a neck tattoo. But maybe I need to change my definition of what a gun person is, to include myself.

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