Gunslinger

On Saturday, I went to the gun range with Ross and Robin. This is the second time I've been, and I can say with certainty that it's a helluva lot of fun.

The hours before entering the range can be stressful but also exhilarating. Shooting a gun is both dangerous and risky if mishandled or treated with disrespect. But if done right, there is virtually no risk to yourself or anyone else. When you feel the weight of the metal in your hands, you realize just how much power is contained in something so small. And when the trigger is finally squeezed, that realization is hammered home. Pun intended.

The first thing the range officers do with you is hand you your protective gear. This includes safety goggles and ear mufflers. A gun releases a blast at, if I remember correctly, 105dB while permanent hearing loss occurs somewhere around 122dB. The goggles are to protect your eyes from the flying cartridges ejected from the handgun after each shot. These cartridges get heated to over 100 degrees Celsius, but only remain there for about 2 seconds. However, if in those 2 seconds it comes into to contact with your eyes or skin, you can expect a minor burn. (If you ever go, don't wear collared shirts in case the collars act as funnels. And for women, they give t-shirts to those with open cleavage.)

Next they show you how to load the clip with ammo. A box of ammo comes with all the bullets lined up in short rows of 5, and you can pretty much load that many into the clip before the spring gets too hard to insert any more. You slap the clip into the bottom of the gun, pull back the slide, and release. The first bullet is now loaded in the chamber and ready to be discharged through the barrel.

Gripping the gun firmly with your right-hand (assuming you're right-handed), and placing your left-hand in the hollow formed by your fingers on the other side of the gun, slowly move your finger over the trigger and aim. When you're ready, line up the sights and squeeze the trigger. The gun will fire, the cartridge will be ejected, and the gun will recoil. Seems pretty simple, except guns differ in how much you have to squeeze before the bullet is fired. It's like driving a car in manual, you have to learn where the clutch catches.

When the clip is empty, the slide will lock in the open position allowing you to check that it's no longer loaded. Press the eject button on the side of the gun to release the clip, place the gun down facing down-range, and you can reload.

We tried three different guns this time. Ross picked a 9mm Steyr, Robin picked a Glock, and I had a Kimber .45 . Of the three, I like the Kimber the best. Not only does it have a wicked look to it, but the bullets are fairly large and give off a satisfying explosion when discharged. The power of the gun is very impressive by comparison with the 9mm which fires much smaller bullets. It's also a lot easier to control, or so I found, than the 9mm. The Glock was right in the middle, and not too bad overall.

Learning to shoot a gun is something I've always wanted to learn. Maybe that's because I watched all three Die Hard movies one too many times, or maybe because I'm compensating and trying to prove that being gay doesn't mean you are inherently afraid of all things "macho". Either way, I managed to land all my shots in the approximate area that I was aiming for, and I got a bit of "slide-bite" which occurs when the slide slides back and clips a bit of skin off your thumb. Like a sports-injury, it looks kinda cool. :)