On Target

I celebrated President’s Day and the day off work by exercising the recently highly debated American right to bear arms.  Prior to this trip to the indoor range I had never held or fired a gun.  It’s not that I think people don’t have a right to protect themselves; it’s just that truthfully they make me extremely uncomfortable.  In the spirit of my 30 before 30 list I added a mix of things I really want to experience as well as a few life experiences that I think someone exiting their 20’s should have.    This item was one that I just think every person should have experienced by the time they turn 30.  Thankfully my dad agreed to take me.

Let me set the stage for you.  We walk in the building and I’m immediately uncomfortable by all the items around me.  I was floored at how large and scary some of the items people had that they just keep lying around their houses.  Yikes!  We waited about 20 minutes before a lane opened.  The lanes were really close together and people had some crazy firearms in there.  One was mounted on a tripod and was equipped with a laser pointer and all.  Thankfully my dad only brought two basic guns with him for us to shoot with.  One was a small pistol which is what we started with.  I found it incredibly hard to keep a steady aim with it and it took 11 tries before I even hit any part of the paper target.  I did get slightly better after that but I didn’t feel comfortable firing it.  I also managed to misplace my left pointer finger during one shot and singed it a bit on the barrel as it rotated.  Thankfully the ash wiped right off.  Next we tried shooting with the rifle.  I thought I would feel less comfortable with this because it was so much bigger and more cumbersome but I hit almost the middle of the target in my first try and hit the paper target every time after with the rifle.

 

The experience was not as scary as I thought but it did confirm my feelings that I’m still not comfortable with guns.  I am glad that if I ever was in a situation where I needed to use one I feel better equipped to know what to do.  I also learned that in case of a zombie apocalypse I need to have a rifle and lots of ammo on hand!