Me & A Gun

If you haven't heard the song, take a few minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN3zdTXOQAM

It still makes me cry and maybe doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, unless you;ve been in a situation where you have had to check out, go somewhere else, just to get through it.

But that's not really what I want to talk about today.

About three months ago, I took a ladies' handgun course as part of the 10 day celebration of Gabriel's life.  The challenge for the day was to step outside of your comfort zone.  I had never fired a gun, only held one very few times, and to say the class and the opportunity to fire 8 different handguns took me outside of my comfort zone is an understatement.

I'm not asking you to think it's rational, but I hate guns.  I am not asking you to agree, but I know that if Sean didn't have a gun in his home, he wouldn't have died the day that he did.  And you can give me the perfunctory response, that people who are suicidal will find a way to kill themselves, but I will give you my perfunctory response, which is that suicide by gun is one of the most effective ways to kill yourself - More so than hanging, overdosing, slashing your wrists, or jumping from high places.  People who shoot themselves are dead before they even know they've pulled the trigger.  So yeah, maybe someday Sean would have killed himself anyway.  But if he didn't have that gun, he'd have to set up a noose, and that's a pain in the ass.  Or he would have to make up his mind and then go out and find an adequate number of drugs, and in the interim someone might say something to talk him down.  And slitting wrists just wasn't a very Sean thing to do.  Guns were a Sean thing, and a perfectly legitimate thing for him to have in his home.  How very poetic for him to be holding it when he died.

These were the things running through my mind as I sat in class on a Friday evening for approximately two hours of lecture and one hour on the range, including dry shooting 12 handguns followed by live shooting of 8 handguns.  More than once during our class, the instructor looked at me and asked me if I was okay.  Somehow, during a break, it was revealed that I identify as a "liberal" and I was asked what brought a liberal to a handgun course.  I told him that maybe people who identify one way don't have to fit his stereotype, and he seemed to accept that.  I was an excellent student in the classroom, taking diligent notes that I still have on a legal pad. 

When we got to dry shooting, I struggled.  There was a lot to remember and a lot to coordinate with my body and that kind of stuff doesn't come naturally to me.  The guns were heavy.  I had a hard time remembering to keep my finger off the trigger, which is still strange to me because it seemed to be instinct to slip my finger on to the trigger even though I have no experience with guns.  And they tell you to always assume a gun is loaded, which meant around me there were 11 other loaded guns and a bunch of women who had no experience in using them.  But, I managed.

Then it was time for live shooting.  We were able to select a stall with the gun we preferred for dry shooting.  It all happened really fast.  Through my ear protection I could hear the muffled sounds of the instructor telling us to square up, aim, and fire, and the next thing I knew, faster than I realized, I had pulled and there was a bullet hole well above the shoulder of my target, missing the human outline completely, and the tears were streaming down my cheeks.  A ring hovered in the air, probably not for very long at all, but long enough to take me back to that day that I pulled into the parking lot of Sean's apartment complex, ran to his studio apartment, peaked through the blinds, and began pounding the window and tearing it open.

"I have to get out of here."

"What?  Why? Are you okay?"

"I have to get out of here."

I was directed to a booth where I could observe the rest of the live shooting, if I wanted to, and I chose to do so.

Later, the instructor told me the gun I had fired was the most powerful of the eight we were shooting.  It was a Glock 23 in 40 caliber.  Maybe I should have started with something more manageable.

But that wasn't the problem.  The problem is, I hated holding the ability to take a life in my hands.  I have seen too many lives end to want that kind of responsibility.  I've brought life into the world three times, and that's what I prefer to do.  And I don't want to drink myself into a stupor and blow my own head off someday and when considering the possibility of A) Live shooter, B) Armed intruder, or C) Drunken Suicide, C seems the most likely to arise.

Maybe someday I will find myself in a situation, wishing I learned to fire a weapon and had a permit to carry one concealed.  I hope not, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.  Maybe I would be a different person today if I had a gun back when it was me dreaming of Barbados and the soft sweet biscuits of Carolina and the Senior Prom and whatever I had to think about to survive being raped.

What I do know is that who I am today, is not someone who wishes to carry a gun.

My mom asked me I would do something, knowing it would upset me.  Well, I didn't know it would upset me as much as it did.  I also think being afraid of something isn't a good reason to not do something - Even though there are a lot of things I don't do because I am afraid.

I don't get to say anymore, "I've never fired a gun," and that's changed me because that fact was such a significant part of who I was.  For the first few days after, I thought I had compromised myself by undertaking that experience but I don't feel that way anymore.  I chose to challenge myself and I what I've thought for years I now know with certainty:  I hate guns, and I don't want to shoot one again.