My entire life, I’ve been scared of guns. I don’t know why. My family always had them around and I liked to look at them or watch other people shoot them, but I never so much as laid a fingertip on one because they scared me so badly.
Having lived in Tennessee for over three years now, I’ve seen a different side of things. The attitudes here toward guns are a lot different than what I saw at home. I’m not saying that Tennessee is full of people who have huge arsenals or anything (though I’m sure there are a few, ha ha). But a great number of people I know here have carry permits, and a lot of them are women (a fact that was shocking to me at first).
So, what with 2010 being my year to try new things, I decided I’d face my fear (and in the process, get to check off an item on my 101 in 1,001 list). I went up to Guns and Leather and borrowed a Glock 9mm from them and Mike took me out on the range and showed me how to shoot.
We were shooting 5 rounds and switching off. The video was shots #6 through 10 for me. You can see at that point, I was still flinching really bad. Ha ha.
Of course, that was a vast improvement over my very first shot. I watched Mike shoot first and then he told me it was my turn. First thought in my head was: Maybe I don’t want to do this after all. I could just watch him shoot. But I stepped forward anyway. Next thing I knew, I had a loaded gun in my hands. Deep breaths. Aimed. Squeezed the trigger. Pop. A flash of fire and a little kick that bent my wrists up and back to the right.
I don’t know exactly what I did then. I think I may have set the gun down. (I know I kept it aimed down-range because Mike told me explicitly no matter what I did, to make sure I did that.) I felt myself almost start to cry. I hadn’t known what to expect or how it was going to feel. Watching someone else shoot is nothing like feeling it go off in your own hands. The flash and the pop and the feel of all that power in my two hands made me shake. I leaned against the wall fighting back tears. Mike said he thought I was about to walk out, based on the look on my face, and characteristically, that would have been a very me thing to do.
It was running through my head: I don’t like this. This is scary. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ll let Mike finish up and then we can just go home and it will be ok.
I collected myself. One more shot, I decided. I’d force myself to do it one more time and if it still scared me, then I’d quit.
I braced my arms and wrists a little more stiffly. (While I realize most people would laugh at me for saying this type of gun “kicked” at all, having never had my hands on a weapon previously, I had been taken by surprise the first time around.) I was shaking a little, but forced myself to breathe and steady my hands.
I squeezed the trigger, this time anticipating what I would see, hear, and feel. And this time, it wasn’t so bad. So I fired three more times, each time having to pause and collect myself, but each time gaining confidence.
At the end of the night, Mike loaded the last 10 rounds (he’s much faster than I am at it) and gave me a fresh blank target all to myself.
I promise there are ten bullet holes there, ha ha. The ones to the upper left were the first three or four, and then I started to compensate for where I was aiming to get more to the middle for the remaining bullets. I guess I’m pretty consistent. Mike seemed in awe. He told me he was extremely proud of me and that I did a really good job.
I felt proud of myself. I conquered a fear that I’ve had since childhood. I forced myself through something when I wanted to give up. To boot, once I got the hang of it, I found target-shooting to be pretty damn fun, actually.
We went back upstairs at the gun shop and the men working there congratulated me and told me I did a good job too. That particular shop is known for being very woman-friendly, and they didn’t disappoint.
Then I decided to get myself a little belated-birthday gift.
I wound up going with a Springfield XD9 rather than the Glock that I’d tried out at the range.
The XD9 had some added safety features that I really liked: It has the double trigger (like the Glock). It has a 1911 grip safety, which is the lever at the back that requires you to have the gun firmly in your hand for it to fire. There’s also a round-in-chamber indicator and striker status indicator.
The XD was a bit heavier than the Glock but that’s the only thing I could say about it that was “negative” (and it was such a minute difference that I can’t even count that against it).
When we got home, Mike and I sat at the kitchen table quite a while and he taught me how to take it all apart and clean it, then reassemble it. I watched him. Then he made me do it myself. It’s all a bit stiff and apparently I need to work on the strength in my hands, but I can do it!
I’m kind of looking forward to taking it back up to the range (I have a free pass–woohoo!) so I can really get to know my gun specifically.
That feels weird to say — my gun. It felt weird to buy in general. But it also felt incredibly empowering.
