Shooting in California

One again I must state that all that I write here pertains only to me according to my perception.

I was a child of the mid-thirties— born in 1934— and loved to play “guns”: Cops’n’Robbers; Cowboys ‘n’Indians; Soldiers (remember, this was in the time of World War Two) and unlike most parents of today, playing “guns” was okay and we all… Well, all of us boys had cap pistols — usually Gene Autry or Roy Rogers — or a homemade something that reasonably resembled a gun. Some of our home made guns actually shot rubber strips made by cutting ½ inch wide circular bands from old rubber inner tubes. How these rubber band firing guns were made escapes me now but I do believe that they were somehow constructed with and by using wooden clothespins. 

During the, by now, many years of my life, though I had never fired one, hand guns have always held a certain mystique for me. Even throughout my three and a half year in the military, though I most certainly marched my share of “watches” with an M1 rifle on my shoulder, I had never fired anything larger than a .22 rifle.

However now, at age seventy-eight, thanks to a good friend and neighbor, I, much to the chagrin of my children and brother, since April of this year (2012) I have become a bit of a gun nut.

Yes, this is true , not only have I become a— must be whispered within the circle of my Jewish family— not only have I become a Conservative  Republican, but I have also become a bit of a gun nut… And they don’t even know that I’ve joined the NRA

Nah, it’s not that I’ve become some kind of a crackpot gun nut, I just like the sight, feel and “kick” of a gun.  And the more noise the thing makes and the more “kick” it has, the more I like it.

The only place that I fire at is the “Oak Tree Gun Range” in the City of Newhall, California.

“Oak Tree Gun Range” is an outdoor range where just about anything that falls within the legal limits of California gun laws can be and are fired… Actually the L.A. County Sheriff and Los Angeles Police Departments very often have large contingents of Sheriff’s Deputies and Police Officers at Oak Tree “qualifying” or practicing.

If you’re interested in seeing what the place looks like here it is:

                                                http://www.oaktreegunclub.com

Closely monitored, we are never allowed to shoot without “eyes” and “ears”: eye protection and either ear plugs or sound suppressors.

 yes, I do enjoy the sound and power of a .357 magnum or a .44 revolver, or even a 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol as it shouts; yes, I said “shouts” – of course it also shoots — but, even through the sound suppressors, I hear the explosion of powder and the sense of power as it surges through my hand up my arm and into my shoulder.

Though I’m still a rather poor shot—at least by the standards I set for myself— I am improving.

New guns to me look to be…? more mechanical whereas older guns, at least to me, I believe that older guns have character.

My oldest pistols, a large Smith & Wesson .38 police special with a six inch barrel and a cowboy style .44 magnum, also with a six inch barrel, are both, I think, minimally fifty-five to sixty years old. Matter of fact, so I’ve been told, my big old .44 is the same make and model gun that Matt Dillon (James Arness) used in the TV series, “Gunsmoke”.

Kind of a—at least in my mind— a memorable thing happened about a month ago.

The range opens at 8:00 on Saturday and Sunday mornings and, as it does get pretty crowded, I like leaving home—the range is exactly 40.1 miles away—at about 7:15 on Sunday mornings in order to arrive in Newhall at about 8:00 and I do enjoy the solitary, early morning  ride along the northern rim of the Simi Valley.

On this particularly  beautiful Sunday morning there was a semiannual shotgun contest with hundreds of people, all carrying shotguns—could be a bit disconcerting, you think— milling about the shotgun and rifle range parking lot. The pistol range parking lot is about a city block to the north and, though minutes from opening, there were a number of people waiting to get into the pistol range..

Once signed in, the shooters area is a number of roofed, five foot wide, partially partitioned booths all open and facing outward to a long, wide range of metal targets at varying distances set into dirt berms backed into and by a high range of low strung hills.

On this early Sunday morning nearly all of the pistol booths were manned with from one to three shooters each.

With multiple shotgun blasts coming from the east, with thirty or more pistols of varying caliber firing at the targets to the front of us, suddenly a deer broke out of the slight hill to the left of the pistol range and the call, “COLD! COLD!” sounded loud and clear from out our noise suppressors and immediately all firing stopped as the deer crossed before and across the entire, maybe, 150 yard wide range. This, to me, was very impressive.

Self-protection or sport?

My guns are only meant for sport.  I have never, nor do I plan on ever firing at a living thing: human or animal.

Self-protection? If, God forbid, I ever have to aim a gun at a human being for self-protection?, I still don’t know if I’d be able to squeeze the trigger. By now, however, most likely, yes.

Last April, when I had mentioned to my family that Bonnie—my lady-friend then, my wife now— and I were planning on purchasing a gun to target shoot, my brother, accusingly, asked me: “Could you ever shoot another person?”  I honestly told him, “I don’t know.” He then asked Bonnie the same question.  “If someone entered my home uninvited with the intention of robbing or hurting us,” Bonnie said, “bet your ass I’d shoot him!”

God, I love that woman!

©November 13, 2012 / Mark M. Lichterman