All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

That quote is from Daniel Boone.  I happen to agree. 

Tonight, I shot a gun for the first time ever.  It was pretty fucking awesome.

A gun club in St. Catharines has an open shoot on Tuesdays.  For $12, you get 50 rounds of ammo, and a bunch of safety lessons.


not just my boobs,
but burn marks on my boobs from spent shell casings.
I'm hard core.



Geoff and I have been watching Top Shot on Netflix.  Both of us got jazzed up and wanted to shoot something.  I knew that my friend, Bill, had been to a shooting range before, so I reached out to him to find out.  He and Barb were interested as well, so off we went.

We did the safety instruction class first.  I will admit, I was intimidated as hell, when I first touched the gun.  Hell, even when I saw the gun, I was nervous.  There are all these steps you have to complete, in order to make sure the gun is safe.  You have to pick it up in a very specific way, to make sure that you are keeping the muzzle pointed in the safe zones.  I was so worried I was going to fuck it up, and honestly, when we were actually in the range, I forgot alot of it.  But I understood the basics, which is never point the muzzle at anything you don't want to shoot, and always assume that it's loaded. 

We got to fire .22 caliber pistols.  Mine was a left handed Ruger.  It was different than the one we practiced with, and mine jammed alot.  The guy thought it was how I cocked it, and it might have been.  I handled the thing like it was a live rattlesnake. 

When we first started firing, the thing that got me the most was the noise.  I have heard gun shots before, but never right beside my head.  Even with the ear protection on, it was loud.  Very loud.  I jumped a couple of times.  But that might have been the adreneline coursing through me, at the thought of loading and firing a real, live, honest-to-goodness gun.
It sent a shiver up my back, just touching the bullets, sliding them in the little magazine.  Pushing the magazine home, it was satisfaction made of metal.  And the first trigger squeeze....

I was hooked.

I didn't do great, but didn't do too badly either.  I hit my target with about 15-18 of my 25 rounds (you change your target half way through).  It was tricky to remember how to hold the gun, and to breathe, and to squeeze.  To line up your front sight through your back sight, to the bottom of the bull.  To be safe, and not wave the damn thing around.  It reminds me of golf, so much to think about, to make it seem natural. 



my own little shell



My gun seemed to like throwing off the spent shells.  I got hit in the face and the safety glasses plenty of times.  I caught a couple in my cleavage.  Let me tell you...shells fresh out of a gun are hot.  Damn hot.  I burned my chest, and of course, fired till the magazine was empty before I fished it out.  Next time, turtlenecks.

It ended all too quickly.  I have sore shoulders right now, but I think that is more due to the stress I had today at work, and the stress I gave myself about being good and being safe with the gun.  There was very little recoil with the little pistol, just enough to throw off my sights every time.

I will defnitely go back.  It was a bucket list thing, learning to shoot.  In a very real way, I am preparing for the Zompocolypse, when it comes.  I need to learn other weapons, if I am gonna keep us safe from the horde.  But since Geoff is a better shot than me (he hit the target 23/25 and 25/25 times) as he said "I will be the one on the roof with the sniper rifle, in the snow and the rain.  You and the kids get to stay inside." 

Yeah, right. 

So, I have a very healthy respect for guns and what they can do.  But I can't wait to try again.

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "NRA, baby!"