I am quite certain that several of you noticed that parts of my last blog post just didn’t add up. The Keystone Cop routine of rushing in blind and then retreating, the anxiety over our neighbors’ safety, the massive response by law enforcement… all for metal scrappers?
I have to admit to leaving out a key piece of information. In a word – guns.
As you may recall, I am married to a retired hunting guide, who still hunts for pleasure on a regular basis. He has quite a collection of “long guns” – rifles, shotguns, muzzle loaders – all tools of the trade.
Or, I should say, had.
Our primary concern that night was to stop the bad guys before they gained access to the storage container, which is where we store everything that doesn’t fit in the barndominium (basically, everything we own). It is actually an old cell tower site – a reinforced building surrounded by chain link and barbed wire. We are convinced that they expected to find wiring, batteries, and other assorted electronics inside. What they found instead was a completely different story.
And Dave and I are sick about it – on so many levels that I am at a loss on how to verbalize it.
As you know from previous stories, I am still coming to terms with my own comfort level with guns. I recognize the need to protect myself from mountain lions and now, apparently, meth-heads, but I still question my ability to ever raise a gun against any living thing. (Except, of course, rattle snakes.)
But now, with my own sense of security violated, I am feeling incredibly vulnerable. So it was with a desire to feel more empowered that I asked Dave for some more target practice because, while I feel comfortable enough with the .22 pistol and snake shot, I have never really shot a long gun.
And here it becomes necessary for another emotional aside. Starting the morning after the incident, neighbors have been showing up on the doorstep, quietly offering Dave the loan of a “ranch rifle.” The thoughtfulness of it, the matter-of-factness of it, has brought tears to my eyes on not a few occasions.
But we began my training with one of the rifles spared in the heist. It uses the same caliber bullet as the snake shot pistol, so the only thing I had to get used to was contorting my body around the stock to sight in targets.
And, as I polish my fingernails against my shirt collar, I batted 750 when it came to shooting tin cans off the fence.
The thing is, it took me so long to set up and sight in each target that the mountain lion would have had time to completely devour two mules and at least half of one of my own legs before I pulled off a shot. And that would only have served to piss it off even more – feeling more like a bee sting than anything else.
With that in mind, Dave took up an offer from one of the neighbors, and we borrowed a shotgun that they both swore was the perfect size and caliber for petite, little me.
Dave set me up at the pond for this practice session, wanting me to see the “scatter pattern” that the gun produced. He handed me ear plugs, which should have been my first warning, and then showed me how to stand so I wouldn’t get knocked over. He warned me it would have a lot more recoil than the rifle I had first tried, and left me with the admonishment, “So don’t be a sissy and drop the gun after you pull the trigger,” before stepping well out of the line of fire.
I firmly planted myself, locked in on a mud patch in the pond, and… Holy Crap!
To my credit, I didn’t drop the gun, nor fall on my butt.
But, I am still picking pieces of my teeth out of my tongue, and I don’t expect to be able to lift my arm over my head for a week.
As for the scatter pattern – the shells were called “dove shot.” All I can say is never mind the dove, an entire flock of geese would have been completely obliterated. I guess I can rest assured that when the bear comes through the kitchen window for the dinner leftovers, that dove shot will have sent it fleeing into the next county before I can finish picking all my molars up off the floor.
In light of our new arsenal, we needed to pick up some ammunition to go along with it. In an interesting pairing of errands, we made stops at both the gun shop and Victoria’s Secret.
So I can say with confidence that the Badass Tinkerbell is, once again, well-armed and well dressed.
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