Shooting range.

When I was a college student, I think I signed up for pistol class to fulfill a PE requirement (I wasn’t athletic then) and so – I found out that I’m not a bad shot. I remember that they wanted to recruit me to be on the pistol team, I kind of even remember the captain running out of the building after me as I was walking out and telling me that if I joined, I’d surely win, there were so few women competing and I was quite good. My mother, also a good shot, has an enormous trophy that she won when she competed in some shooting competition in her youth.

Anyways, it’s been more than 30 years since I’ve picked up a gun, but I still have a small, lingering interest in target shooting and Felix also was interested shooting a gun and, frankly since gun culture has exploded in the US in the past 30 years, I wanted to go to the shooting range to see what was going on. Sadly, what is more American than experiencing gun culture.

Ginny, Edda’s caregiver, also came with us. I couldn’t resist. A middle-aged Chinese woman, a Mexican woman and a teenage Swede walk into a gun range and…there is the beginning of a joke. Ginny is a gun owner and actually has been a member of the gun range we went to.

I was nervous, it did not help that on the way there, Ginny told us that someone got shot at the facility accidentally the day before (a person accidentally shot themselves – they are fine!). Anyways, I purchased us beginner packages and we watched a safety video and then we went to the range where it turns out, I still am an excellent shot and man, the entire thing was really scary. We shot a semi-automatic handgun (the name/brand escapes me) which was way more involved than the pistol I shot with in college. Ten rounds in a magazine. Very loud. Very scary the entire time for me.

Though, paradoxically, I am pleased very with my target. I did the target a 3 yards, 10 yards and 15 yards – the ones wider out from the center were from further away, but I’m pretty sure all my bullets landed on the paper. I still have a steady hand, but my eyesight is pretty terrible, lol.

So, what did I think of the whole thing? I was actually very discouraged and scared for all of us. When we walked on to the range from the classroom, there were a pair of buddies shooting a large gun – I literally have no idea what the names are for each of these items – with a laser sight (what fun is it when the red laser tells you where to aim?) and the loudest fire sound I could image coming out of a gun without it being a bomb that goes off in your hand. I was like – I hope those folks aren’t crazy and just decide to turn around and shoot all of us right here, right now.

Our instructor, very kind and measured, owns more than 25 guns and we asked him to bring some out and he brought out this gun which begins with AK was it 15? 19? it know it wasn’t the 47. Anyways, we weren’t allowed to shoot it at our class, but Felix did try out the feel of it. Anyways, the instructor told us he has a concealed carry permit, so he took it in his backpack everywhere he went. Like do you need an AK whatever at the grocery store? It just baffles me. I mean, I guess I knew of this, but to see it and feel it and then to imagine that every other person on the street has this in their backpack makes me kind of want to throw up. This weird fetish of gun ownership.