Woke up in time to make it to brunch and take a shower before I drove my car to Main Circle. At 1 PM, I met up with Greg, which was awesome. It was his 21st birthday, and he had decided to take us out to Midwest Gun and Range to rent some guns, buy some ammo, and go shooting, his treat. So, we both wore our ‘matching’ Tex/Church Red vs. Blue shirts (I think this only makes sense to the two of us) and waited for everyone else. Greg’s going to have to remind me of names later, but I know Bohnert (his roommate) and Ashley were also in the car with us on the way there.
And we got lost. Horrendously lost. I have developed an intense dislike for how South Bend does its signage, because we spent about ten minutes trying to figure out what name one street had. At least everyone else in the car had Google Maps, cached info on their iPod Touches, and an intrinsic knowledge of what direction is north (since we mostly had to go east-west). We also hit detours, maneuvered through strip mall parking lots, and generally got discombobulated before we finally got our bearings. (We did have a sing-along to a song from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, “My Eyes”, so that at least was good.)
We were waiting on two girls to get there from Michigan, and during the entire trip Greg was worrying that they wouldn’t have the address or that we’d have to wait on them. As it turned out, even though we had a head start on them, they arrived about 45 seconds after I put my car in park.
I was okay about the whole unfamiliar situation until we got inside. Then, my brain started freaking out. Holy bleep, I’m about to shoot a bleeping gun. I tried not to look like I was swallowing my tongue as we tried to pick out a beginner’s pistol. We had to hand over our IDs to go through a brief background check (apparently you can’t shoot if you’ve had felony convictions or something, not like any of us were worried). You have to have protective gear, too, just basic earplugs and eye protection, although apparently prescription glasses are enough.
So finally we had picked out a Sig Sauer 226 9mm pistol for the ‘girls’ (all four of us hadn’t shot before, and Greg said that 9mm had the least kick), and Greg had spotted a G36 rifle for himself as his ‘birthday present’ – but apparently this was no ordinary rifle. It was fully automatic. Apparently the full-auto really isn't commercially available. (As a sidenote, whatever the guy next to us was shooting had huge casings and was also ridiculously loud. We never figured out what it was, though.)
I waited for a while to watch how everyone else was handling things before I stepped up. I did things in the ‘right’ order and tried shooting the pistol before the rifle, but we had to load our own clips, which was mildly annoying to say the least. At first we couldn’t load the clip correctly and we had to send the gun back to get cleaned, but then we figured it out. My fingers weren’t quite strong enough, and I think Greg was laughing at me on the inside for fumbling around while I loaded the clip. And I never did figure out the sight on the pistol, so my target looked abysmal, but… hey, I actually shot a gun for the first time.
Then I got to shoot the rifle. Whoo boy. It really should not have been as fun as it was. Just holding it was a pretty powerful feeling. The scope was really intuitive, and my shots got progressively further center the longer I was shooting at semi-auto. Then I flipped the switch down and went to town. The way the full-auto works with the G36 is, you just hold down the trigger for however many rounds you want to come out. I wanted to do all threes but I messed up and got four in there somehow, and one of the casings fell out and kind of burned me on the arm, but these things happen. Shooting that, especially seeing how accurate I was able to get, made me feel… kind of powerful. Not that I would like to have that feeling all the time, but I felt completely capable for once that day (rather than feeling terrified).
Moral of the story, for me anyways, was: If you feel absolutely terrified going into it, there’s a good chance that if you try it, you might learn something as you go and you might even like it by the end. So, while I’m abroad, it’s not going to matter how much something scares me. If it’s within the limits of common sense and I have a few people to watch my back, of course I’ll go for it. Second moral: No matter how old guys get, for their birthday they really just want to play with some interesting toys. Not that guns are toys, but Greg was having a lot of fun.
On the ride back, we took the toll road instead of the back roads and had a sing-along to Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” which was funny. It’s stuck in my head right now, actually. Now that song will forever remind me of weekend road trips at ND, which isn’t such a bad thing really. And Greg got to open his birthday present from me: the XKCD Linux cheat sheet shirt. I'm the best best friend there ever was.
We got back on campus just in time to catch the second half of the Notre Dame-Michigan football game. I’m not going to dwell on it except to mention that the officiating was worse than terrible. The thing is, the only thing that could possibly be done about it is an inquiry and a fine for the Big Ten to pay. But if it’s the Big Ten paying the fine, then that’s going to make Ohio State look bad even though it’s the Michigan game where the officiating went wrong in the first place! Ooh, it just makes me so mad. And then we almost didn’t make it to the dining halls before they closed for the night.
I called Rachel during dinner to see what the plans for last night were. I almost made it to an off-campus party but decided against it at the last minute, so surprisingly and against my best intentions, the weekend was actually completely alcohol-free. As it was, I wanted to hang out with Greg for a while longer. He took a few happy-birthday calls from his family and we chatted in the lobby of the Knights of Columbus building about guns for a while. Greg's brother was able to figure out that, with licensing, a G36 full-auto would probably cost around $21,000 to own. No wonder the dude from the range insisted on being with the gun at all times - it was really expensive!
I managed to pick up my targets from his room and meet up with some of Greg’s friends in the student union. Between all of us, we decided that it was nice enough of a night to go star-gazing, so a few girls grabbed picnic blankets and we headed out to one of our rugby fields (less light pollution further away from the dorms, although visibility still wasn’t top-notch). Greg was our ‘guide’ since he’s worked at two planetariums (planetaria?). Eventually, though, the sprinklers turned on by us, so we scooped up the blankets and ran for our lives.
Greg and I ended up hanging out talking until midnight, when Rachel joined up with us. I met her boyfriend briefly and we chatted about the zombieclypse and video games based on ND before I finally noticed that, hey, parietals would be ending soon and so I needed to get back in time for Greg to swipe me back in. I hugged everyone goodbye, called Justin, and managed to fall asleep by around three (now there’s a more typical college weekend). And somehow, I still missed giving Rachel her very belated birthday presents and getting my shirt back from when I loaned it to her in April.
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We were NOT lost. We just made our own route. Two of us always knew which way was North, and we needed to head East. And Midwest roads are simple.
ReplyDeleteThe Sig 226 was not "for the girls" per se -- it's a very good thing to start out with. It has a decent feel to it, and not much kick since it's kind of heavy. A simple one, good for getting the basic principles down.
The guy next to us was shooting .308 shells. They're huge. And yes, that G36 is a military-grade assault rifle. Particularly effective at long range, not so much for sustained fire or close quarters.
See? Shooting is fun!
They're cheaper to get if you're a dealer. That was the cost for someone like me to own one. Not gonna happen.