What the Boss Likes – liberals with guns!

This weekend my husband and I shot things. Lots and lots of inanimate things. His friend from work has a collection of guns and offered to take us to the gun range.  A return to our Appalachian redneck roots….  Husband is ex-military so knows his way around most firearms.

My husband and I do not own guns. We like to shoot but it is not a good idea to have weapons that can kill so easily in reach of people who have bipolar disorder and anxiety issues. So, we have friends with guns and my parents have a couple. I’ve shot many a paint can up on the farm.  In case any one can’t guess, I am very much for gun control.   Guns are lethal; they aren’t toys for idiots to parade around with playing wannabee soldier or policeman but who don’t want the responsibility such positions should require.

I shot a shotgun (12 guage) at clay pigeons. Let me say, I suck at that. Perhaps if I had some upper arm strength to hold the weapon correctly, but the skeets (what I called clay pigeons when I was young, since it was skeet shooting and you were shooting these so…..) were very safe. My husband was pretty good and so was his friend. Husband was lucky enough to shoot one skeet twice.

Then we went to the pistol range. It’s shocking on how much difference a silencer, or more properly, a suppressor,  makes. We shot a .22 pistol and a 9 mm Glock of some type I do not recall. Weirdly, I shot much better with the silencer attached to the weapon. With the Glock and silencer, I had to aim completely above the targets, the target not even in the sight, but hit every time I shot. I’m far too tickled to know that I could target 8 shots in a row. We were around 20-30 feet from the targets. Most of what I shot were metal targets that tip over when shot. The .22 wasn’t even enough to move them, but it made an amusing ping when they were hit.

Then we had three different rifles. One was a .22, an AR-15; one was an AK-74 (we think) and a 9 MM.   You can tell I’m not exactly a gun nut since I haven’t a clue what exactly they were. Husband’s friend will be so disappointed. These were all with a rest or bipod. I was weirdly again better with a silencer on than off. Just a tiny bit sore in the shoulder today from the recoil, though for most of the weapons it was neglible. I grew up shooting .22 rifles with the occasional 30-06 standing up with no rest. Not sure of the range, I think 100 yards: we used a scope to see our hits.

This is a dangerous sport, but I’d certainly do this over rock climbing. Just keep the weapon pointed away from anyone, keep your finger off the trigger unless it’s pointed at a target and be aware that you have something that can kill another person in your hands at all times. I do think everyone should shoot at least once in their lives. It separates reality from the Hollywood fantasy. And what if the zombies come again?   🙂