My experience with firearms is really limited. When I was a kid my neighbours had BB guns and let me shoot them off from time to time. Our targets were mainly street lights, snakes and a new house that was built in the middle of our sandlot baseball field.
I remember my friend Carl aiming at a bird flying by and pulling the trigger and actually hitting the poor thing in mid-air. It fell like a stone to the ground dead. We looked at each other so surprised that the robin was dead. Then his old aunt, Edna, from across the street started yelling and screaming that we were murderers and should be ashamed of ourselves. We responded by running away as fast as we could!
A couple of years ago I had a problem with my computer's motherboard. I phoned up a friend of mine, Richard, who was a programmer and knew how to work on computers as well to make an appointment for him to look at it.
He took my computer apart, showed me how it had been poorly designed and why my motherboard had fried. He then said for me to come along with him for a car ride.
We went downtown and parked in a seedy little alley that runs adjacent to our main street. We got out of his vehicle and walked through a door and then went down a flight or two of stairs. It was dark and damp. I had never been told of this subterranean area that was right below our downtown district.
We then entered through a set of heavy doors, possibly of steel, and walked into a firing range. Richard opened up the case he was carrying and pulled out a gun. He explained that it was a German luger from World War Two. He loaded it, described how it worked, and let me take aim at some targets at the far end of the gallery.
I was not a very good shot. But I also felt sick inside. If this was a real German Luger I wondered if it had seen any action. How many Nazis or German people had used this gun to blow out the brains of precious Jewish citizens?
I knew that Richard could sense how uncomfortable I was shooting a gun. He didn't press me to take another round when the gun was emptied. We left shortly after and he never asked me back there again. I am not disappointed.
