A month or so ago the topic of guns arose in conversation and I was asked about my experience with firearms.
Zero, I said. Nothing. Zilch.
I moved here from Great Britain where handguns are completely illegal. Even cops on the beat don’t carry a gun.
I’ve never touched one, I said, and I’ve never seen one fired.
Hmm, I thought.
Two weeks later I was at an undisclosed location in some woods near Lexington shooting off 100 rounds from a Springfield XD 9 millimeter handgun, completing the required training to get a concealed carry permit.
“A bit more firepower than you saw in the old country, eh?” someone chuckled.
Yes indeed, but that’s not a very high bar. A couple of peashooters and a cap gun would have checked that box. Back home, weapons used in self-defense tend to rely on blunt force and bludgeoning power.
A telling fact: Britain has close to zero interest in the sport of baseball, yet manages to sell a suspiciously large number of baseball bats.
In an English pub called the Jolly Drayman, in the town of Gravesend, the barmaid once told me that she kept a hammer and a table leg behind the bar in case of trouble.
“I’ll pick up the hammer if I need to,” she explained, “but the police will classify it as an offensive weapon. Whereas the table leg – that’s something that might just come to hand when it all kicks off.”
This touching “Home Alone”-style improvisation with whatever wood and metal happen to be lying around is the sort of tomfoolery you have to resort to when you don’t have the right to arm yourself to the teeth.
Here in Ohio, my day of training – 11 hours in total – began with a classroom session at the back of the Bellville Police Department. There were about a dozen of us, and this training would allow us to apply for a license to carry a concealed handgun.
To make matters clear, no permit or license is necessary to carry a firearm openly. You are already quite entitled to walk down Main Street with a gun on your hip.
You can’t brandish it or wave it around – that could get you a charge of “menacing” – but if it’s holstered you’re good to go.
As well as the nuts and bolts of the law, the class covered gun safety, how to choose your weapon, the best kinds of ammunition and other practicalities.
We looked at psychology, physiology and the potential repercussions (legal and financial as well as psychological) of killing someone in self-defense. And considered what to do if you find yourself pointing a gun at someone as the cops arrive.
There are also the mundane details to consider. If you’re going to walk around all day packing heat, how heavy a weight can you comfortably put up with? Where exactly do you carry the gun? Do you care if it shows when you bend down to get a box of cereal at the grocery store?
Then there’s the question of defense in the home. How accessible should your gun be while you’re sleeping?
I had a neighbor in Columbus who kept his gun close by at all times. He had a tendency to pass out on the couch. When he did get robbed he didn’t even wake up, and the gun was taken from under his nose as he snored.
His response was to take target lessons.
What he needed was not-falling-asleep-drunk-on-the-couch lessons.
In any case: theory is one thing, practice is another. After our class time we were ready to head out for some actual shooting.
I admit it. I was nervous.
Negligent discharge. The words kept playing across my mind as our cars rolled over the bumpy, muddy ground into the woods.
Negligent discharge. This was the number one thing we were meant to avoid. Yet it was a phrase that seemed to have my name written all over it.
My innate clumsiness and lack of coordination is truly world-class. I considered this fact as we unpacked the guns and set up the targets, and quietly asked myself what the hell I thought I was doing.
I pushed the cartridges into the magazine the wrong way round — twice. Once was forgivable. Repeating the mistake with the next magazine was just embarrassing.
Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to fire, the instructor had advised us. This seemed to me an exceptionally good rule, and I took the opportunity to mutter it a dozen times under my breath.
In an odd way, I felt like I’d been practicing for this moment in my head for years. Like many teenagers I grew up obsessed with violent films and watched endless hours of shootouts and gunplay.
It felt natural to hold a gun. It felt natural to slot in the magazine, to rack the slide. To point the gun and look through the sights.
And pull the trigger. And feel the instantaneous change from nothing to everything.
To register that thunk of unforgiving velocity as the bullet buries itself instantly and irrevocably wherever you’ve pointed it.
It felt good. At some level, utterly bloody terrifying. But good.
I must say, the Springfield XD 9mm is a very comfortable gun to hold and fire.
“You’ll be amazed at how controllable it is to shoot,” says the sales blurb, correctly.
It’s scarily easy.
Our targets were human outlines just a few feet away representing an in-your-face confrontation. Nevertheless I’d been worried about my aim. When I play darts I’m all over the place, sometimes missing the board entirely.
But this was much easier than darts. If I could use a 9mm at the Happy Grape I’d hit a bullseye every time.
For fun, I also fired off a few rounds from a Smith & Wesson revolver (pictured). It has a slightly heavier pull on the trigger, and a refreshingly old-school feel.
I considered the day a great success. By the time we packed up and left I was in a particularly good mood, bursting with pride at having not shot myself or anyone else.
Later that evening I was at home making a ham sandwich when I knocked over a pickle jar and spilled the juice all over the counter and floor. With a curse I started to mop it up, and then had to chuckle when I realized this was the same fumbling pair of hands that had been holding and shooting a lethal weapon an hour or two earlier.
You may find the thought of me with a gun troubling. You may have a point.
But I can assure you, I’m a lot more careful with a handgun than I am a pickle jar.
