Friday, December 21, 2012

Tea and Targets

    
We started out with stardard police 
targets, but moved on to the fun 
zombie targets.
Suz and I bought these Groupons last month for a basic pistol safety class for women only at the armory nearby. What better way to spend the day of the world's demise than shooting guns?! The first hour is a classroom portion (and yes, we did drink tea) where you learn about what type of guns and ammunition fall into this category, rules for safety on the gun range, in public, and in your home, parts of the gun, etc. She had several models for us to handle and get a feel for. Even though they weren't loaded (there's no live ammo allowed in the classroom) I think we were both pretty nervous about handling the pistols. It did help a lot to be doing this before we went into the range. 

Being from Alaska, I've had the opportunity to shoot quite a few guns, but never regularly or the same type of gun. I'm not comfortable being around them or handling them. I'm not comfortable with other people, even if it is their gun, handling them either because you don't have to know about guns to own one and clearly there are a lot of people who have a lot to learn about the responsibilities of owning a deadly weapon. This is especially relevant in light of the recent shootings here at the Clackamas Town Center and Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut this past week. Personally, I think one should have to show proof you've taken a basic pistol/ gun safety class before you can buy. [...]



Finally, the moment of truth. Even though we have ear protection, the first few gun shots made me jump. The first time pulling the trigger was nerve-wracking, but by the time I made it through the first 10 rounds, I was feeling much more comfortable and eternally grateful that there was barely a recoil. We were handed 50 rounds, but she gave us some more if wanted. Hannah at the Beaver Creek Armory is an NRA-certified instructor and she did a great job introducing us to pistols and helping us get over any anxiety about being near them. She was a relatable, genuinely knowledgeable, and patient, not an NRA gun extremist. I'm ready to go back for more and take Matt with me.


Suz started with the SR22 like me, but it kept misfiring.
She took it as a sign from the universe and switched to a revolver,
which she much preferred.

We celebrated surviving the Mayan 
Apocalypse by preparing for the 
Zombie Apocalypse.
Head shots are the only way to kill 
a zombie. You'd know this if you 
watched The Walking Dead.
For fun, I tried hitting a smaller target 
at the 20 and 25 ft distances.

The range is quite chilly- wear layers!




In the conversation below I am "Kay". Sam and Molly went to high school with me. 


Molly  shared a link.
Thursday, May 31 at 12:26am near Seattle, WA

The amount of gun violence in Seattle this year is unreal. You can blame it on people rather than guns if you like, but tell me that the three year old boy who shot his seven year old sister is to blame. Or the nine year old boy who shot aclassmate at his elementary school. Or the three year old boy who shot himself in his mother's car. Or the mentally ill man who went on a shooting rampage today. They should never have had such easy access to firearms.


2 dead, 3 wounded in U District cafe shooting
seattletimes.nwsource.com
Two men were killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting this morning in North Seattle. And police are investigating a separate shooting at Town Hall downtown in which a woman died.
262Like ·  · 
  • Ken and Amy  like this.

  • Kay  what? that's unreal! i saw a sticker on a truck the other day with calvin pissing on "gun control". i looked over and told matt "i'm all for the right to bear arms, but i'm also all for gun control." where were those kids or that mentally ill person finding those guns? thats terribly sad.

  • Christina don't want to like the post but molly i love your message.

  • Molly It's extremely sad and terrible that there has been a whole succession of them. The 9 yr old boy got a gun from his mother's car while visiting her (she didn't have custody) - I think it was her boyfriend's gun. She had a criminal history, not sure about her bf. It accidentally discharged while in his backpack at school. The boy who shot his sister picked up his father's (a police officer!) gun when he left it loaded and in the car while he and the mother went into a court house. The other little boy picked up his mom's bf's gun while they were at a gas station.

  • Kay so everyone left loaded firearms alone in the car with children?!

  • Molly I have no problem with some gun ownership - for hunting or shooting responsibly at firing ranges - but I do have a problem with people who want to have guns for self-protection. Most of those people are not well educated and trained on how to handle and store their weapons. And it is pretty well documented that most people who have guns at home for self-protection and actually do have their homes broken into, end up having their guns used against them.

  • Molly  Yes. Many people can't be trusted to own firearms. That's my point! If it was harder to get them, if you had to have more safety training and education, these irresponsible people wouldn't have them!

  • Kay  it should be more like getting a motorcycle license perhaps. most people take a class, but everyone has to prove that they know how to drive one and get their license before they're allowed to drive one off the lot. (although for that example you could techically put the bike on trailer and take it home). require background checks and passing of a gun use and safety class before you can buy one.

  • Molly I know part of the problem is too that there are just so many guns out there, people can get them illegally. Sigh.

  • Chris Responsible gun ownership is never an issue. It is almost always irresponsible gun owners and people who do not have enough experience with them in combination. Teaching people how to identify guns and what to do if they find one is the most basic rule of gun safety, and it doesn't require a gun.
  • Elizabeth you already know my thoughts on this

  • Sam  I'm with Kay on this, I personally don't think licensing requirements infringe our right to bear arms too badly when you look at the responsibility and accountability it engenders... but self protection is absolutely a legitimate reason to own a firearm, one that has played an important role in our nation's past and continues to play one in our present and future. Tragedies are tragic, and we can always learn from them, but gun ownership is too important an issue to be decided by berieved parents looking for a symbolic gesture to give their childrens' death meaning. Gun ownership did not kill those children, careless parents did.

  • Elizabeth  Thou Shalt Not Kill, doesn't mean anything I guess

  • Chris Roughly twice as many people fire from car accidents as do from non-suicide gun deaths. Numbers are roughly even if you include suicide gun deaths. Where is the movement to regulate cars more strictly?

  • Molly My problem is the ease at which 'careless parents' and other irresponsible people are able to obtain guns. I disagree that gun rights should remain just as they are because they were an important part of our nation's founding - so was the enslavement of African Americans, suppression of Native American rights and a lot of other things that no one should be proud of. Our values as a society can change. I am not against any gun ownership, being from Alaska I know as well as anyone that guns can and are used responsibly but I do think there should be more regulation, education, and there should just be fewer guns floating around getting into the hands of people who can't use them responsibly.

  • Molly Chris, I agree with you 100%. We recently had a friend who was killed in a car accident and this issue has been weighing on my mind heavily. I've been thinking about a blog post on how dangerous driving is. I'll let you know when I write it! Do you have a link or something to an article with those statistics? I would be really interested to see them.

  • Chris I am on my phone. I will look it up, and update you. The issue is there is a big delay in reporting on gun deaths, where as reports on car deaths are nearly instantaneous.

    There are related agreements to be made about car deaths and cycling.

  • Tim  America has grown accustom to about 1 public shooting a week it seems. I don't know what the right answer is... I use to say if everyone carried a gun and had a little training we wouldn't have so many problems but I know that's wrong. People are slow to respond and always wait for someone else to react and do the right thing. I don't think anything says that better than the fact that it took 18 minutes before someone reacted to the crazy naked man who was allowed to keep eating someone's face off for 18 minutes next to a busy road.

  • Molly  Chris - I have wondered about cycling deaths too since so many people are afraid of riding on the road and want to warn me about how dangerous it is. I suspect it is much more dangerous to drive on the road than to ride a bike on the road but it would be cool to see some statistics

  • Sam My position on gun rights by necessity devolves into me parading around my libertarian values and mistrust of the government... so I'll spare you all, I'm sure you've heard it before! But I will say that gun rights is a much different thing than racism, and it's very disingenuous of you to relate the two! Shame, shaaaaaammmmeeee! 

  • Molly Ha, well and my views on culture always devolves into the anthropological reality that societies are dynamic - our values and traditions are always changing. No human culture is static. 

  • Chris I think there are 1000 car deaths to 1 bike death per time unit of exposure. It is ridiculous.

  • Sam No human culture is static, but history does tend to repeat itself. It's a little naive to think that the last couple hundred years of American history somehow renders us immune from the sort of tyranny that the founding fathers sought to protect us from by making sacred the public's right to arm themselves. Individual deaths and murders are terrible, I agree... but the oppression of an entire people is a tragedy on a much grander scale that must be vigilantly guarded against the best way we know how: by arming the public both politically and physically against encroachments upon their liberty!

    Dammit, I did it anyway! 

  • Lindsey  This is such a difficult and touchy issue for so many people. It's nice to see people who have different view points who are still able to discuss it in a polite and intelligent manner. I think this is one of the best debates on gun rights I've ever seen, it's given me some good points to think about on both sides.

  • Molly Lindsey, that is because Sam and I have been debating since 11th grade debate class!

  • Sam She beat me! I was robbed!

  • Molly Sam - I understand your argument but I think that sometimes there is a slippery slope when individual freedoms can contribute to larger social problems.
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