RUN AND GUN

Guinea Get Your Gun: How I learned to love firearms (Emily Yoffe, Slate, 11/18/04)

I pressed the Beretta AL391 Urika deep into my shoulder and against my cheek, as if gripping a shotgun stock were as natural as holding the strap of my purse. I said, "Pull," in a firm yet casual way, to convey that, sure I drove here in a Volvo, and the radio in the Volvo is tuned to NPR, but I'm actually the kind of woman who loves the smell of cordite in my hair. Two weeks ago I was so ignorant about firearms that I thought shotguns discharged bullets and I didn't know the difference between a revolver and a semiautomatic. But here I was shooting trap, in which clay disks, the moving target simulating a bird in flight, are released at unpredictable angles from a small trap house. As the "pigeon" flew on my command, I swung the shotgun to follow its arc and pulled the trigger. My instructor called out, "Oh, yeah!"

I don't own a gun and I don't shoot very often, not more than once every couple of years, but it is the universal experience of everyone who has dragged a reluctant friend or relative to the range that they have a blast.

Posted by David Cohen at November 18, 2004 12:34 PM