Actually, I went to two parties last night. Both for my husband’s work.
The first one was at someone’s house and it’s the first time I have ever carried into another person’s house. I have never felt comfortable carrying into someone’s house without asking them if it is ok to bring a gun and I have never felt comfortable asking.
However, I am getting more and more uncomfortable not carrying, so I did. As you can probably guess, it was uneventful. No one knew and there was no issue. Well,there was one issues, that particular party was a bit lacking, so I was kind of thinking alcohol might have helped, but, of course, I don’t drink and carry.
The second party was more formal and at a restaurant downtown. I carry all the time in restaurants.
The first party was casual and had lots of people that neither of us knew, but the second one was a smaller more intimate party of people from his office.
Since it was people that he knows well, many of them know we carry and shoot, but I wasn’t planning on bringing it up.
We are not there 2 seconds when a guy comes up and says, “Hey, I have heard about you, your not carrying now are you?” “You kind of scare me.” Phil and I look at him, smile and laugh at his joke and he moves on.
Later at dinner, we are at a small table for 6, when the gentleman next to me says, “Hey, I hear you shoot guns.”
I tell him I do.
He says “My wife wants to learn to shoot, will you take her shooting?”
This goes on for a while, him telling me that his wife really wanted to shoot, but she is sitting across from me and the look on her face says, please God, I would rather do anything but go shooting with this woman.
Eventually, I say, “Does she want to shoot or do you want her to shoot?”
He says, “No, she wants to”
She speaks up and says, “No, you want me to.”
Him- “I do want you to shoot, but it’s not like I am forcing you.”
She says, “Yes, that is exactly what it is like.”
At this point, I decide we should change the subject, so I do.
This woman is a very smart, pretty gal, who is a school teacher and the two of us got a long very well, but shooting was not something she wanted to talk about. No problem. We talked about all kinds of other things, kids, vacation, work, the usual dinner party chit-chat.
A little bit later another gentleman at the table asks me if I have ever shot the Judge. I said no and he said I have one, so the two of us have a nice little chat about guns. What he shoots, what I shoot, and I must have gotten very excited about the subject because eventually the nice lady I was speaking to earlier says to me “You really like guns, don’t you?”
LOL, yeah, kind of.
I tell her yes, I really do.
She says, “They scare me.”
I think, ah, now we can talk.
She asks me if there was ever a time when I was afraid of a gun.
I smile and say yes, in fact I am a new shooter, only about 9 months.
She tells me her husband travels and really wants her to learn how to shoot, but she can’t even touch one.
She says a few things about some people think this country is in trouble and its the end of the world and we should all get guns and prepare, but she thinks times aren’t that bad and even if they are, she did not want to think about that.
I happen to be one of those people that is pretty darn concerned about the state of this country and am all about preparing for the worst that could be a’coming, but I did not think this was the time to tell her about my plans for a zombie invasion:)
Instead, I said, your probably right, we can all be a bit over dramatic, but just think about what has happened right here in our town in the past year…3 pizza parlors robbed at gun point, 3 convienence stores held up at gun point, home invasions, gang activity at the mall, the shooting on the freeway, not to mention what happened at Virginia Tech.
I am not trying to scare her, just help her see that there is plenty of concern in the here and now, even if it is too much for her to think about the future.
She says, I can’t even touch a gun.
I said, if you are interested I would be happy to sit down with you and help you get used to holding the gun. No ammo anywhere in sight. Just you, me and the gun. I said we can take it apart and you can see its just a thing. You will see there is a spring, harmless, a slide, not at all scary and, in the case of my Glock, a very light frame that when taken part feels like a lot like nothing.
I told her that it helped me tremendously to just hold the gun and to take it apart and put it back together again. Once I was comfortable with the gun and understood, in my own mind, that the gun was just an inanimate object and I was the one who controlled what it did, I felt in control. The gun was no longer this dangerous thing that just went off without warning, killing the children in my house. It was an object that if handled incorrectly, much like a car, could be dangerous, but if I was handling it, then it would be safe because I was safe with it. I told her there are rules to follow and if followed, religiously, without fail, then there is no more concern with a gun then any other “thing”.
I told her I would be happy to sit with her and explain the safety rules and let her practice taking a gun apart, so she could see for herself.
She said, “That might be good”.
Few more hours go by, lots more mingling and then her husband takes me aside and asks me if I am taking her to the range to shoot. He think his .357 Magnum revolver is powerful and would be for her to learn to use.
I tell him, Uh, no. We are not starting her off with a .357 Magnum. He says what if I load it with .38 special. I say “Nope.” Mostly because I am not all the familiar with revolvers, but also because she had told me earlier that gun scares her the most.
He says, “I have a 9mm.” He was drunk and just to mess with him I was gonna ask him if he meant 9×19 or .380ACP or 9mm Makarov or what, but instead I just said, “that’s good, a 9mm is fine”.
The night winds down and we say our good-byes. Her husband is looking at me with desperation, so I look at her and say, “If I called you would you want to get together and learn more about shooting?”
To my surprise, she says yes, rather enthusiastically.
I ask her if she is sure because I am the kind of person who will actually call.
She says, “Yes, I really would like you to call”.
We exchange numbers and in January, I am going to call.
I am interested to see what she says when I do.
