Why yes, it just might be. My 21 year-old daughter, Valentine, and I spent last weekend qualifying for our Texas concealed handgun liscense. We went with my Dad, who needed to re-qualify to continue packing heat all across the friendly state.
Dad was thrilled when I called him up and told him to sign us up for the class. He likes his daughters and granddaughters armed. He called me every evening to give me an update on his preparation for our shooting portion of the test. He borrowed several handguns, loaded up on ammo, and made us a mini-course out in the country to brush up our skills. Well, actually my skills were fairly nonexistant. My daughters go out and shoot with Dad every time they visit the grandparents, but since I usually don't stay for the week with them, I don't get the shooting practice or the ice cream cones from Dairy Queen.
I gave Dad a little hell on the phone last week because he's given my sister, Henny, a gun, my husband a gun, and my oldest son a gun. I said, "Do you notice who is missing from this list of the gifted?? Were you perhaps waiting to see if my marriage worked out the way I wanted before actually giving me a gun?"
He chuckled and said, "Well, if I'd thought about it, I'd have given you a gun when I gave you away to make sure it worked out exactly the way you wanted!"
In any event, we drove out to the practice range Friday and lo and behold: Daddy gifted me with my very own pistol. Have I mentioned lately that I love my Daddy?
My shooting was not so hot, but we practiced several times throughout the day and made improvements. Val skipped one of the practices and let Gran dye and cut her hair, a move she would later regret when I beat her on the shooting test.
We drove out Saturday morning to take our class and enjoy a little three generational gun bonding. As my Uncle Shorty always says, "The family that slays together, stays together."
Our instructor was a wonderful, colorful man and a part time police officer and as it turned out, we were the only three in the class. Since Dad had been coming to his class to requalify for years, he directed all the instruction toward Val and myself. He gave us a little lecture at the beginning of the class about how we needed to decide we would be willing to use deadly force to stop a threat this very morning or forget taking the class and carrying a weapon. Trying to make up our minds in the midst of the moment, he said, would be a terrible mistake.
He don't know us vewwy well, do he? We made it very clear that we would be willing to shoot if we were in fear of our lives without batting an eyelash and deal with whatever guilt or anxiety followed at a later date. Obviously, fretting about "how it all went down" is a luxury afforded only to those still alive to tell the tale. I decided in 1984 I could certainly live with that.
After a couple of hours of lecture, we headed out to the range to qualify with our pistols. Out of a possible score of 250, Dad shot 230, I shot 229, and Val shot 228. Although we were not thrilled with our scores, we were well within the passing score of 150 and we promised to practice consistently until our shooting improved.
To explain further, each shooter is allowed 50 shots. 20 shots are fired from 5-6 feet, 20 from 10 feet, and 10 from 25 feet. 5 points are given for the head/heart part of the torso, 4 points for the areas just outside of that range on the torso, and 3 points for any hit on the target's torso/arms. I hit 35 shots in the 5 point range, 12 shots in the 4 point range, 2 points in the 3 point range, and pulled one shot over the blue dude's shoulder. In a completely random fluke, I also managed to plug him once right between the eyes. This makes my score 15 shots shy of excellent viewing the blue dude, but actually 16 shots off since I must have pulled the head shot and what are the odds I'd get that lucky in a real time situation?
Back for more classroom lecture and an exam on all the information we'd covered, we all scored 100 percent on the test over that material, so we were quite happy with our day. We stopped off at the local steak house, consumed copious amounts of red meat, my treat since Daddy had bought me the gun and all, and headed back to my parent's house.
We did miss my daughter-in-law, Veronica, who was supposed to go with us and qualify as well. She was on board and excited, but came down with a nasty flu and fever and was recovering on Thursday morning when we headed north. No worries, though. We already have plans to take Veronica and my son, Viagra, up next spring so that they get qualified too. I feel sure I'll carry on the family tradition and buy all the kids a gun as well. After all, my Dad raised me right.
I know I said I'd be busy until October, but due to scheduling my weekend is mostly open, so I'm back as of today. I'm never early for anything so I'm savoring the moment.
