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| 8 jan 2002 very interesting experience yesterday.� an experience that left my heart pounding and my brain ticking.� so much so that i couldn't sleep until 5am.� yup.� i actually fell asleep after jay left for the hospital, the first time that our daily lives have overlapped like that.� i actually heard him rustle in bed, take a shower, and drive off.� shit.� i peeked over.� just past 5am. so what happened? well, as you can see from the pictures, i went shooting... for the first time.� i've touched guns before, and a few years ago, before going to my first and only gun show, my friend charles showed me the ins and outs of handling his glock and beretta. see, i've always had this fascination for guns.� shit, i grew up in TEXAS, so go figure.� when i was little, my dad bought this air rifle, and we would sit in the back yard, shooting birds that perched on our tv antenna and screamed down our chimney.� we shot at cans and hand-drawn targets and stuff like that.� i even did a science project on armor and whether spacing between the sheets of armor helped lessen the penetration of a projectile.� hell, i read _guns and ammo_. but... i've never fired a real gun until last night.� i always wanted to, but i was a bit nervous about handling such a deadly weapon... so to the backstory... i was chatting with will on AIM, and i felt restless and wanted to do something, so i blurted out "SHOOTING!" not expecting him to take it seriously.� but he actually said yes, and he knew of a place in milpitas called "target masters" or something like that.� so i took a deep breath, told myself "carpe diem," and agreed to meet him at 99 ranch at 7:30, but not before going home first to change and get my camera to record this momentous event. we got the lowdown on the rules (no headshots, no double taps, basic policy) from this hick-type who got really mad when i called a magazine a "clip."� blah blah blah.� i just wanted to shoot and get the experience over with.� when the hick guy asked us what we wanted to shoot with, without hesitation, i said, "beretta 92f."� it's the gun i've always wanted for myself.� looking back, i was such the eager beaver at the place. but i was really scared.� i was totally shaking. basically, i am petrified of the power that holding a gun gives me.� it's like the one ring in _lord of the rings_.� you're basically holding your own life and the lives of others in your hands.� and i think that's too much for me to bear.� once i held the loaded gun in my hand, i felt like time slowed down to a crawl, and every second ticked with painful agony, weighed down by the gravity and seriousness of it all. what's worse, after the hammer is cocked, it only takes a slight soft tap to fire the next round.� and what raced through my mind was how easy it was to misfire, to accidentally hit the trigger and fire a round into someone's head or something.� one time, after will shot a round, he pulled the gun in to check if it had jammed, and it wasn't... and while the gun was clearly pointed away from the target, it fired accidentally when will obviously wasn't trying to shoot. damn.� it's so fucking dangerous, this business of handling guns.� so.� fucking.� scary.� i keep thinking that i could have died last night, that death literally was sitting in my hands, a yard away from my heart, from my head. you know sometimes when you're driving down a highway, and as you drive across and overpass, you wonder about how easy it is to just yank the steering wheel and sail through the barricades and kill yourself?� well, it's a hundred times worse when you have a loaded, cocked pistol in your hands.� shit.� i don't know why i have such a strong thanatos instinct.� but it scares the shit out of me. so it was kind of a life-altering experience for me.� i went home thinking that i had somehow been spared from something terrible. i don't know i'll ever want to fire a gun again.� i certainly won't own one, not in the near future.� i still like shooting, but i'd rather have something that's somehow more innocuous, say, a rifle or an airgun.� handling a pistol is way too easy to fuck up.� and the mystique of guns definitely changed itself in my eyes. morbidity aside, though, check out my shots from 18 feet away in the picture on the right.� not bad, huh?� if anything, i daresay that i have a steady hand (as will said) and a decent knack for hitting the target right where i wanted to.� 7 of the 10 shots in the mag (not clip) were in the center bullseye. maybe i should take up archery instead.� it seems harder to kill someone accidentally there. on a side note, the hick guy who helped us said that in the 6 years he's worked there, there have been two suicides.� he pointed out holes in the carpet and in the windows where people misfired.� and a few months ago, someone got shot in the ass.� dude.� why the fuck would you ever work at a gun place?� it seems so high-risk. so that's it.� because the targets were blue, jay gave me the green light to mount them up in the living room just above the blue futon.� kind of gives our apartment a spooky look, i must say. i came back with a daze in my eyes, and i talked to jay and margaret about it a little bit.� they both seemed a little incredulous and maybe a bit disapproving, but i can see where they're coming from.� guns are definitely not for the immature.� and i now believe that there are probably a shitload of people in the world that own guns who shouldn't.� it's just a heavy burden to bear. *phew* well... anyways, the beretta is a good gun.� i've always wanted one ever since high school.� and i think firing one is something i can mark off the list of things i want to achieve in my life.� but now that it's over... all i could think about last night was how to write this journal entry.� and my hand still remembers how it feels to fire the gun, and how it kicks back slightly (the kick was a lot better than i expected).� and i think the emotional response i got out of shooting just overwhelmed me, and that's why i couldn't stop thinking about it and couldn't sleep until 5am. ----- anyone catch _ally mcbeal_ last night?� the one with mariah carey and her spotlight?� i set the timer on the vcr, but it didn't tape.� shit.� what happened? ----- oh, and i was bitching to will over dinner last night about the lack of crushes and stuff.� and when we were driving over to the shooting range, he was playing a cd of mp3's (his car stereo can play mp3's) of cheese music.� so i requested britney's "stronger."� shit, that made me really so much better!� i guess music, even cheesy pop, is powerful enough to alter moods.� so i felt better for a while before the whole shooting experience overtook me. shower me with love.� e-mail me! |