Honeyguns
Twelve people are on the firing line to shoot the qualifying test for the Texas Concealed Handgun License. My assistants are each watching an assigned group of four, while I watch the four shooters closest to me, and look down the line for safety issues. The last thing on my mind is how they are scoring. The first thing on my mind is ensuring everyone leaves the shooting range with the number of holes in their bodies equal to the number of holes in their bodies when they arrived.
There is usually one shooter in each class, a woman, experiencing a lot of muzzle flip. I’ll call her Maude. At a nine foot range, Maude places every other shot into low earth orbit, or at least another ZIP code. As soon as I notice this happening, I watch Maude’s face. As I say “fire”, she aims, closed her eyes, turns her face away, grimaces, and pumps the trigger like she’s dispensing hand lotion. Obviously not a Clint Smith graduate. If there isn’t a safety issue, either with her, or to other residents within the county, I allow her to finish the course of fire. Odds are, she will need a requal. After the nine foot range, we move to 21 feet. After that we back off to 45 feet. In both these cases, after all, she may help the other shooters qualify. Not by making them look good. That’s another issue. No, actually, she helps them by scoring hits on their targets…and the support cables…and the barricade wood. Get the picture?
After class is done, I take Maude aside and explain the requalification procedure. She can take a private lesson as a one-on-one, and then schedule another day to shoot the required course of fire. She agrees. As we talk, I can see in Maude’s eyes a fear and loathing of handguns in general, and of hers in particular. I have seen it before too many times to count. I offer words of encouragement. It helps somewhat, but there still is a dread of doing this crap again reflected in her baby blues. We set a lesson date.
The appointed day rolls around. I arrive at the range early, loaded down with my Shooting 101 gear. I consider Maude a newbie. We start with a blue practice gun. We discuss safety, stance, hold and breathing. Then comes a CO2 pellet gun. I teach sight picture, and review the previous building blocks. We shoot a lot of pellets. I watch to see if a light bulb comes on suspended in the air above Maude’s head. I look for a comfort zone. When it happens, we move up to a Ruger Mark III .22. Now we go to loading, clearing, safety, and most importantly, trigger control. Then to a S&W 9mm. Now she is grouping 6 inches at 21 feet. She smiles after each three round group as improvements compound. Now she is talking herself through the corrections. Just when she is thinking she is all through, I make her strip her own gun down and reassemble it. Six times. If taught correctly, this all happens in a few hours. Two hours, 150 .22 rounds, and one hundred 9mm rounds. Maude might not be ready for IDPA, but she can shoot a qualification.
I didn’t have her shoot her own gun. Way back at qualification, she demonstrated exactly what I mentioned I have seen so often. The gun she was shooting was too much for her. Either it was too big, it was too powerful, or both. Most assuredly, I see men guilty of the same thing. For guys, it’s because they believed the gun ads or the store clerk, and bought the biggest, baddest, most evil gun. That was Mr. Ego exercising his own innocent gullibility.
But, for the ladies, 99% of the time, it is because some well-intentioned fellow, be it spouse, boy-friend or “guy who knows all about guns”, bought that .45ACP full sized Kimber night-sighted, camouflaged 1911A1 ego trip, and with a genuine smile, gave it to her and said, “I bought a perfect gun for you, Honey!”
I bet that is the very same guy who, years earlier, gave a baseball glove to his dad as a Father’s Day present just so he could borrow it. Maude would probably have hand-made a card for her dad with a heart on it.
