by Dan Savage
I pick out one of the larger .22s, a black gun with a long shaft.
“That’s an excellent gun, a fine gun,” Paul said, removing it from the case and setting it down on the counter between us. “It’s a real nice piece.” He took the clip out, made sure it was unloaded, snapped it back in place, and handed me the gun. That’s when my heart began to race. I’d never held a real gun before, but I immediately and instinctively placed my finger on the trigger.
“Take your finger off the trigger,” Paul said. “You only put your finger on the trigger when it’s time to shoot.”
Paul showed me how to hold the gun: right hand on the handle, left hand wrapped around the right hand, trigger finger flat against the barrel until it was time to shoot.
“With your right hand, you push the gun forward, with your left hand, you pull it back,” Paul said. “That steadies the gun, holds it level. And you never point a gun at anyone, ever.”
Paul was on one side of the counter, and I was on the other, facing him, which meant that I was pointing the gun in his general direction, if not right at him. I couldn’t turn and point it into the shop, which was filled with people, so I kept pointing the gun to one side of Paul. The only problem was that Paul wasn’t the only person behind the counter helping customers, and every once in a while one of Paul’s coworkers passed behind him, which resulted in me pointing a gun at his coworkers over and over again.
Paul set a small box of ammunition for the .22 on the counter and showed me how to load the clip. The bullets for a .22 gun are so small and so thin that they looked tiny and harmless. It was hard to believe that these little piece of metal would shoot out of the gun I was holding with such force they could blow lethal holes in another human being.
I was lost in homicidal thought when a big guy standing to my right, a man who had been observing my first gun lesson, began to chuckle.
“That’s a nice piece,” the man said, gesturing towards my gun. “But it’s not a man’s gun. Check out my unit.” The man pulled a large, long .45 out of his carrying case, and held it up for me and Paul to admire.
“That’s a fine unit,” Paul said, admiring the stranger’s gun, “a fine piece.”
Piece, unit, piece, unit—there may be times when a cigar is just a cigar, but looking at the gun in my hand, with its thick shaft, comparing units with the man to my right like a couple of drunks at a urinal, I doubted that there was ever a time when a gun was just a gun. It’s not an original observation, I’ll admit, but after being in a room filled with men admiring guns, it’s one I feel somehow obligated to make. There were women at the shooting range; some were shooting, but most were standing by and watching their husbands, boyfriends, and sons shoot. A large, plate-glass window separated the sales counter from the shooting range, and I watched a woman shoot while Paul talked with the man next to me about his piece. It was like watching a woman box or play football; there’s no reason a woman shouldn’t box or play football or shoot if that’s what she wants to do, but it’s almost impossible to shake the feeling that she’s doin’ something that is essentially masculine. A man is four times more likely to own a gun than a woman is, according to the Violence Policy Center, which may explain why men are six times more likely to get shot. Guns are big, loud, scary, and phallic, and men are free to pull out their pieces, admire them, swap stories about them, and blow them off in public—all the sorts of things men aren’t allowed to do with their actual pieces.
Paul hands me a big pair of airport-style earmuffs, a pair of safety goggles, and a box of ammo. It’s time to do some shooting. Paul puts the gun in a little gun cozy, a kind of large, semicircular fabric carrying case that zips up one side. The gun just fits inside, snuggly, and it looks like a quesadilla or a calzone with a gun filling. Paul points me towards the door that leads to the shooting range, tells me he’ll meet me at lane number one. A sign on the door to the range says, NO ONE PAST THIS POINT WITHOUT SAFETY GEAR ON.
The shooting range looks something like a bowling alley; people stand in small clumps around their lanes and observe their friends and family blasting away, taking out paper targets instead of pins. There are little kids everywhere, mostly boys, including an eight-year-old kid standing right next to me, shooting a .45. It’s a little nerve-racking.
I’m trying to remain calm, but the kid’s .45 is going off right next to me and it is loud. To pass the time, I begin to load my gun, just like Paul showed me in the salesroom, and then it hits me—what an insane business! Paul took my ID when he gave me the gun, but fake IDs are easy to come by. Now I’m standing in a busy small business with a loaded gun. Crazy. A business where you hand loaded guns to your customers! The Bullet Trap is packed, the cash registers must be filled to overflowing, and any yahoo off the street who comes in with a state ID can ask for a gun, a box of ammo. What’s to stop someone from walking in, renting a gun, and then sticking it in the face of the person who rented it to him and demanding all the money? How often does the Bullet Trap get robbed?
Not often, according to Paul, and a quick check with the Plano Police Department backs him up. “They’ve never been robbed, so far as I know,” a Plano police officer told me. “The place is filled with people with guns, people who aren’t afraid to use ’em. Robbing that place would be as good as committing suicide.”
It wouldn’t be right to go to Texas and learn to shoot without mentioning the former governor of Texas, George W. Bush.
During the 2000 election campaign, an NRA vice president, Kayne Robinson, told an audience of NRA members that “If we win, we’ll have a president . . . where we work out of their office.”
Bush promised to restore “honor and dignity” to the Oval Office during the 2000 elections, which was understood to be Clinton-bashing code for, “I won’t be getting any blow jobs from interns in the Oval Office.” The White House wasn’t Clinton’s house, Bush said over and over again, “it’s the people’s house.” One way Bush has held himself to his no-blow-jobs pledge is by crowding his office with energy executives and NRA officials.
Bush’s record in Texas was alarmingly pro-gun. He signed an NRA-backed Concealed Gun Bill in 1995, ending a 125-year ban on concealed weapons in that state. Then in 1997, he signed a bill that allowed Texans to take their concealed weapons into churches, hospitals, amusement parks, and old-folks homes. Bush also opposed mandatory child-safety trigger locks on guns—until his longtime support for all things NRA got him in trouble during the 2000 campaign, at which point he launched a voluntary trigger-lock program in Texas.
Ironically, for all George W. Bush’s pandering to the NRA, we do have effective handgun control in the United States. It’s wherever George W. Bush happens to be. This is hypocritical, to say the least. If George W. Bush believes that concealed weapons made Texas a safer place, if he believes that people should be able to carry weapons into God’s house, shouldn’t we be allowed to carry weapons into the people’s house?
Again, the answer to gun violence, according to Bush’s pals in the NRA, is more guns. If more guns make America a safer place, why shouldn’t Bush set an example? If the answer to workplace violence is more guns, call off the Secret Service, get rid of the metal detectors, and let tourists—aka the people—carry their handguns on tours of the White House. If George W. Bush is worried about getting shot, let him carry a concealed weapon.
“You don’t want to ‘squeeze’ the trigger,” Paul tells me, as I stand pointing the gun at the paper target. “Squeezing is something with your whole hand, and if you do that, you’ll move the gun. All you want to do is bring your finger back. Press the tip of your finger down on the trigger, moving only your finger.”
Listening to Paul, all I’m thinking about is moving my finger, and I somehow forget that moving my finger is going to make the gun go—
Bang!
My .22 isn’t nearly so loud as the .45 being fired by the kid standing next to me, but it’s loud enough, and the .22 shell from the bullet I’ve just fired pops out
of the top of the gun and hits me square in the middle of my goggles. Before Paul taught me how to squeeze the trigger, he told me not to focus on the target, but on the sights on the end of my gun. If I lined up the notch at the handle end of my gun with the tiny stump on the barrel end, and if I kept the target in sight, I would hit it. If I shifted back and forth between the target and the sight, the gun would shift back and forth, and my shot would be off.
My shot wasn’t off. The very first bullet I fired hit a bull’s-eye, blasting a small, round hole in the target just above the X. My next shot hit the same spot, and my next, and my next. I fire off seven rounds, all of them bull’s-eyes except for one.
Holy shit. I’m a good shot—Paul tells me so, clapping me on the back.
“You’re a natural shot,” he said.
Natural isn’t something I get called a lot in Texas.
I reload my .22 and take out the X in a fresh target. Paul points out a tiny clump of text: OFFICIAL 25-YARD TARGET. I proceed to put four bullets through four words that I can’t read from where I’m standing. Then Paul points out the words BULLET TRAP INC. at the bottom of the target, and tells me to shoot at the B. I put three bullets through the B.
“You really are a natural!” Paul exclaims, asking me if I’m lying about never having shot a gun before in my life. I tell him that I’m not lying, and he tells me that I really should take up the sport. “You’re good, you’re a good shot. It’s a gift.”
Paul’s compliments go to my head faster than a shot of Jägermeister. I’m good! I can shoot! Paul and I walk back out to the salesroom; I want to try a slightly larger gun, something with a little more kick. We pick out a .38 and head back into the shooting range. The gun is a revolver, and it’s more of an effort to squeeze the trigger, since the trigger makes the barrel turn, and my first shot misses the target completely. But soon I’m back inside the target, taking out Xs, Bs, and OFFICIAL 25-YARD TARGET.
The only person more flabbergasted than Paul was me. While I was waiting for Paul in the shooting range, loading my .22 and watching the kid next to me fire his .45, I prayed I wouldn’t embarrass myself. That was the most I could hope for. “Please God,” I silently prayed, “let me hit the target a couple of times. I don’t need to hit a bull’s-eye, I just don’t want to shoot a box of ammo and have everyone around me see that I didn’t put one hole in the paper target.”
I reloaded the .38, dropping the spent shells onto the floor. I took out another X, another B, another OFFICIAL 25-YARD TARGET. I was blown away. I felt like Charlton Heston would if he discovered one day that he gives a really mean blow job. I mean, who knew? Who could have predicted? How could it be? And how ironic! I was one of the picked-last-for-everything kids in school, way too wimpy for the rough-and-tumble boy sports of kickball or baseball or basketball. If only I had known then what I discovered on my trip to Plano. I was actually pretty good at the most masculine sport on earth: blowing things the fuck away, man!
There’s nothing quite like that rush of discovering something you’re good at, something you didn’t know you could do, much less do well, until the very first time you tried it. We make most of these discoveries as adolescents, and I’d forgotten what a rush it is. When you discover a skill you didn’t know you had, a voice in your head says, “You must keep doing this. You will get attention and praise if you keep doing this,” and since everything is ultimately about sex, an even louder voice in your head says, “Keep doing this. This might get you laid.”
My lesson was drawing to a close, but there was one last gun I wanted to try out: a .45. If that little kid standing next to me could handle a .45, so could I. Compared with the .22, the .45 Paul picked out for me was a big, silver monster—the Long Dong Silver of guns—and the ammo was just as impressive: big, thick, shiny, copper-colored slugs. I was tired of taking out Xs, Bs, and OFFICIAL 25-YARD TARGET, so I asked Paul to bring me one of the specialized targets. He brought back a surly-looking gangster, a blue outline of a human with a bull’s-eye over the heart, and a large picture of Osama bin Laden. I picked bin Laden.
Some of my lefty friends were shocked that I decided to shoot at a picture of bin Laden; it seemed like such a thuggish, red-necked, proud-to-be-an-American thing to do.
“Too bad they don’t have any targets with pictures of John Ashcroft on them,” said one lefty friend when I got home.
I don’t understand lefties who hate Att. Gen. John Ashcroft with more passion than they hate Osama bin Laden. Sure, John Ashcroft wants to tap our phones, hold people indefinitely, undermine attorney-client privilege, and sing in public; yeah, he accused people who raise concerns about the dumb ol’ U.S. Constitution of “aiding terrorism,” and he covered up the naked breast of a statue in the lobby of the Justice Department. Yeah, all of that sucks. John Ashcroft, what a dope.
Compared with Osama bin Laden, however, John Ashcroft is basically Barbara Walters—bad, yes, but endurable. What’s more, any damage Ashcroft does during his tenure can, with some effort, be undone. The deaths of the Americans murdered by Osama bin Laden can’t be undone, and the World Trade Center will not be rebuilt. And, shit, if Ashcroft taps my phone, he’ll have to listen to me talking about things that will give him screaming nightmares. Any straight man who can’t stand the sight of a bare-breasted woman in his workplace just doesn’t have the constitution to listen to the gory details of my sex life.
Yet John Ashcroft wants to undermine American freedoms (hey, gun nuts: this is your big chance!), and that fills me with an angry desire to take vengeance—at the ballot box in 2004, when I hope my vote helps to turn his boss, George W. Bush, out of office. But Osama bin Laden killed thousands of Americans and that fills me with a thirst for vengeance that is tempered by some of that good ol’ justifiable righteous indignation. If Osama bin Laden were in charge, he would slit my throat; my God, I’m an atheist, a hedonist, and a faggot. I shave my beard, I work with women, and I prefer to take my virgins here on earth, thank you very much. There are things that Ashcroft and I will never agree about—drugs, sex, indefinite detention—but there are a few things we do agree about. For instance, I don’t like naked women any more than he appears to.
But bin Laden? We have nothing in common, he hates everything about me, and he wants me dead. I have no issues with dropping a bunker-busting bomb in his lap. So I don’t feel the least bit guilty about blasting away at an Osama bin Laden target. But, hey, guilt’s not one of the seven deadly sins, anyway. Anger is, and it was anger (and guns) that brought me to Texas, and what better way to blow off some steam than to blow off bin Laden’s paper head?
So how did I go up against the evildoer? I fired seven bullets from my .45, but there are only four holes in Osama’s forehead—but that’s because three are single-bullet holes and one hole is slightly larger, since I put four bullets in the exact same spot. My shooting instructor tells me that the ability to put more than one bullet in the exact same place means I’m a consistent shot.
“Anyone who can put multiple bullets in the same place again and again has a gift,” Paul said. “With some practice, you could learn to be a real marksman.”
If I wanted to take up shooting as a sport, what would I have to do next?
“If you’re serious about shooting,” Paul told me, “you have to practice enough to get the fundamentals down.” He suggested that I attend a shooting camp, where big, burly instructors would stand around in clumps and yell at me while I shot at paper targets. “It’s a little different than having me there helping you out. These put some stress on you. It’s a good way to see what you’re capable of in a real-life defensive situation.”
Hmm . . . a real-life defensive situation. For most members of the NRA, that would be a confrontation with a drug dealer or a rapist or an armed intruder or a damn liberal. I don’t think I’ll be going to any shooting camps or enjoying any simulated real-life defensive situations any time soon. As much as I enjoyed shooting in Plano, I’m not angry enough to become a part of the NRA.
I liked shooting for the same reasons I liked to bowl: I’m kinda good at it. But just as I never got serious about the “sport” of bowling, I can’t imagine I would get serious about the sport of “handgunning,” as Paul called it.
I am, however, planning on doing some more recreational shooting at a range near my home—that would be Wade’s Eastside Gun Shop, site of two recent suicides. As much as it pains me to admit it, spending a few hours shooting in Plano filled me with happiness. While I can’t imagine ever owning a gun, and while I would never be so foolish as to keep a gun in my house, I am planning on doing some more shooting. Guns are fun, and, hey, I’m a good shot.
But I haven’t gone over to the dark side. Like Jimmy Swaggart and pornography, I now count the seductive pleasures of handguns among the many reasons I’d like to see them banned. Swaggart knew that porn was too much fun to be legal; now I know that shooting is way too much fun to be legal. This may seem hypocritical, considering my position on recreational drugs, but recreational drug use is largely a victimless crime (links to terrorists notwithstanding), and would be completely victimless if they were legal—until guns are banned, I intend to indulge. Like Oscar Wilde, I can resist everything except temptation, and guns are too, too tempting.
Welcome to Gomorrah
I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”