Posted on 11/10/2004 2:56:47 PM PST by neverdem
Facing another four years of Bush, I realized it was high time to see what the Second Amendment crowd is so frothed up about. I decided to go shooting.
Last Saturday, I went to the West Side Rifle and Pistol Range, the oldest and only remaining shooting range in Manhattan. Located in a labyrinthine basement beneath a Chelsea office building, the range offers gun enthusiasts an opportunity to practice or shoot at targets.
Gun culture is hardly a foreign phenomenon for me. I come from Virginia, a red state where the opening day of deer season warrants an excused absence from school. When I go home in the fall, on any given day I'll drive past 10 to 20 hunters walking on the side of the road. We have to slow down so we don't hit their dogs.
But I never went hunting myself, and I wanted to better understand this fascination with shooting. Now that I've become a slick city girl, it seemed as good a time as any to figure it out. Besides, Nov. 13 - the magical date when law abiding Virginians can trek into the woods to blow away a stag - is fast approaching.
The range caters to a wide audience. Law enforcement officers and housewives fire away in stalls next to doctors and students.
"We're very unique," said Darren Leung, the range's vice president. "We service people who have permits to fire a weapon in the most anti-gun state in the country."
Earlier, when I'd told my dad that I was going shooting, he playfully reminded me of the National Rifle Association bumper sticker, "Gun Control is Having a Good Grip." These guys aren't kidding, he said - recoil from a discharging weapon can dislocate the shoulder of a newcomer.
Over the course of two hours, I took the mandatory introduction class and started shooting. I fired off 50 rounds of a .22 caliber, semi automatic Ruger 1022 rifle at targets located downrange.
In English, I shot 50 bullets from a long-barreled, no-recoil, single-projector gun at paper targets located 10, 21 and 25 feet away.
And it really wasn't that scary.
Fortunately, the recoil on my gun wasn't as bad as I'd thought, which was good news for my shoulder. Bullets shoot out of the rifle at a top speed of 545 miles per hour, and have enough umph to maintain momentum up for about two miles.
Once my instructor taught me the basics in the classroom - how to hold the gun, how to fix it if it breaks - I was, well, fair game for the range.
When you finish a magazine cartridge, or if there's a jam, there are three steps a shooter must take to ensure safety.
1. Safety on: Make sure the safety pin is engaged.
2. Magazine out: Make sure the magazine is out and no rounds are in the gun.
3. Action open: Show others that your gun is void of rounds and thus not capable of firing.
My instructor had me recite them in the classroom, and while I was in the stall, I realized their gravity. This thing I was shooting could cause some major damage if it went off at the wrong angle.
I put on my "eyes and ears," my goggles and earmuffs, and went in. I loaded my five magazines, smiled at my instructor and aimed at the white piece of paper he'd navigated to rest 10 feet into the range.
My first goal, he said, was to shoot the paper and then get my second shot into the same hole. Ten rounds later, I had successfully missed each previous shot by a good inch.
During Round 2, I finally got a shot close to the one before. And then, by my fifth and final set, I not only hit the '10' in the middle of the bull's-eye, but I also got three shots within close proximity of each other - and the bull's-eye.
The Virginian blood was kicking in.
In the second, third and fourth magazine rounds, I moved my targets back to 21 and 25 feet, shooting with only moderate success.
The trick to shooting lies in lining up a tiny red pin known as the "front sight" at the tip of the gun with a tiny pocket-like contraption, the "rear sight," on the barrel. Aiming with the front-sight is key to hitting the target, but lining up the front-and rear sights is the key to shooting accurately.
This, it turns out, is easier said than done, since I was shaking as I held the gun. Luckily, my instructor suggested I lean against the wooden bar and turn a bit differently. With this additional support, my left shoulder no longer held the brunt of the three-pound gun, and there was no kickback whatsoever. Victory!
Later that afternoon, I noticed I had gun-dirt under my fingernails, a definite first. There's something to be said about legally firing a gun in a basement in Manhattan. It was fun, exciting and powerfully adventurous - and I'll take that.
And as the bazooka-toting California governor once said, I'll be back.
Sarah Portlock prepares to blast holes in an NRA-approved target with a .22 caliber semiautomatic rifle. PHOTO: Ashwin Desmukh /WSN
I first went to this range almost 40 years ago. One of my best friends is a current member. Check this story from Scotland. New laws aim to ban shops from selling knives. We can't post from The Evening Times, not even excerpts.
"We have to slow down so we don't hit their dogs."
They hunt deer with dogs in Virginia?
Shooting at standing targets is easy. Sarah should take a defensive shooting course. Bruise her knees when she has to stop and drop.
You mean you never tasted them fine Virginia deer wings? A bit on the large side, but tasty!
Maybe they were rabbit hunting. I had a dog that loved to chase deer... always away from me however.
Yup.
Seems to me that was the first time she ever pulled a trigger. Have patience. She said, "I'll be back," IIRC.
It can be done. I used to take my beagles out rabbit hunting on a regular basis and it wasn't unusual for them to start trailing a deer instead. You had to move very fast when this happened in order to keep up, but in the process of retrieving the dogs and putting them back on the rabbits I frequently encountered the deer they were chasing.
Yeah, they taste a lot like chicken. :~)
We ambush them up here.
We jump out of trees with a knife clenched in our teeth and slit their throats. LOL.
Well, good for her! She's gotten proper instruction, maybe overcome some irrational fears, and may even begin to enjoy shooting.
Here in Michigan a lot of hunters would shoot a dog for chasing deer. I wouldn't but i wouldn't be happy about it.
I'm pleased that she is learning. She needs to BUY a handgun and practice. A new convert, eh?
We all need to practice this "sport". I would bet that many "gun haters" haven't ever fired one.
I saw a program on the outdoor Channel about Western Action Shooters. They target shoot for time and accuracy, some even from horseback, like barrel racing.
Shooting can be fun for the family, and a way to teach self defense.
12 more days and that 8 pointer that I see out back in the mornings is freezer bound.
Recoil, in a 10/22??? My 3-year-old daughter could handle the recoil (if she could pick up the rifle, which she can't). What a wimp - even for a woman. She obviously never shot a gun before, or she'd have known what to expect from a measely .22LR.
Downstate in the flatlands, yeah. In the Blue Ridge foothills of Amherst County, Virginia, where I grew up, generally dogs weren't used for deer. You went out on your own land (or got permission from a neighbor), set up a stand and maybe a salt lick/feed dispenser and waited for the deer to show up, or else you went up in the Washington or Jefferson National Forests, set up a stand, and waited for the deer to show up. No John Kerry crawling in the mud with a twelve-gauge for us! It was all pretty much stand hunting, regardless of using a bow, blackpowder, handgun, or rifle.
I'd never even heard of driving deer with dogs until I moved down to Richmond; down there, they have hunt clubs that own land, and they'll drive a line of dogs through the land and flush the deer to the hunters. Same thing down here in central South Carolina where I live now, dogs get used a lot.
And yes, I can verify, at least where I grew up and went to high school (1979-82), you could get out on the first day of rifle deer season with a note from your parents.
}:-)4
Ya gotta realize, this is from Washington Sq. Greenwich Village. NYC.
Only 5 days away here.
I can't get out in the woods the way I used to so I count on my friends for venison these days.
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