This is my rifle, this is my gun...

Two gun stories from my life...

I still have nightmares from the first time I touched a gun.
I was in my second year of college, and one of my good friends routinely had his glock out and about his bedroom for no reason.
As he handed me the gun for the first time, he instructed me to always check the chamber to see if a bullet was ready to go. In my ignorant state, I looked directly down the barrel of the gun. Naive, yes. Idiotic, yes.
He very calmly reached over and took the gun out of my hand, showing me how to do it the right way. I didn't sleep that night, thinking how close I could have come to having my ashes scattered somewhere.

Second experience came a year (and a seemingly increase in common sense) later.
Couple buddies went out once a week to a firing range w/ their shotguns. One week, they took me with them. I'd never touched, fired, etc. a shotgun before, but on my first round, I hit 9 of the 15 clay pigeons.
Some very experienced shooters -- some of whom flat-out scared the bejesus out of me -- were coming up to me and patting me on the back and talking about how I was a natural (I left out my barrel-check experience from the previous year).
Many of the same experiences Batman described were rushing over me. I started having thoughts of competitive sharp-shooting and protecting the president (I liked the one we had then) and all that.
I then went on to miss all 15 pigeons in round two.
Oh well.

 

My father and brothers were hunters. I was taken along one time as a young boy and felt squeamish about it from the start. I was the dork who brought a book along -- there happens to be a Little House episode similar -- and got endless shit about it from the party. I didn't feel any particular rise from shooting the .22 at the beer can on the tree trunk, but I respect those so persuaded.

I re-mounted (with more squeamishness) my old man's six-point buck head after his death, a weird homage more than anything, but that don't mean I'm OK with it. Have caught plenty of shit over that, too.

After Cho, for the first time in my life I gave hard thought to buying a gun and learning how to use it. I'm not that far off a year later.