Monday, June 12, 2006

Guns and Lesbians

I did something amazing this weekend. Something I have never done and honestly thought I probably never would do. I shot a gun. no. I actually "went shooting". I shot a gun multiple times.

I am not anti-gun or anything. I honestly have no real stance on gun control. (I know! What kind of a liberal feminist hippie am I?!) I have just never been exposed to guns. There is only one member of my family that even owns a gun and that's my wacky uncle that lives out on a farm about 2 hours away from the rest of us. No one in my immediate family owns a gun. We are not hunters. We do not target shoot. We sit at home and play trivial pursuit. For this reason, I have always been scared of guns. Extremely freaked out to be honest. When I dated "the cowboy", he had a gun rack with many guns in each room. It kind of weirded me out, and let's just say it's really hard to get into the mood with a rifle over the bed.....

Well,
Security Boy owns guns. He target shoots. He knew well before we ever went out that I am uneasy about the gun issue, and he has never pushed it. However, this weekend we were discussing it and I tried to tell him for the 100th time that I am not anti-gun and it's just that I have never been exposed to them and all of my knowledge of guns is the stories I see on the news of little kids shooting their siblings. He asked me "Would you trust me to show you how to shoot? I will take you shooting if you want, and then maybe you won't be so scared of them".
So, I nutted up and let him take me shooting. It was really incredible. I am so thankful, because he was REALLY patient with me. Through all of my really stupid questions, and my anxiety about it and my "you go first" with both guns. I didn't feel like he condescended. I didn't feel stupid. I didn't feel scared. I had a BLAST! Shooting is FUN! And actually holding a gun and learning about the safety and seeing with my own two eyes that it will NOT fire with the safety on was really empowering. I'm not saying I have any less reverence or awe of the power a gun holds. I understand they can be very dangerous; I am just saying I feel so much more comfortable about it, and it's actually REALLY FUN!
We took root beer cans out and shook them up, so when you hit your target, you know it. It explodes. I would just like to say that on my VERY FIRST TIME shooting. I hit 3 of my 5 targets. With a pistol! BOOYAH!



Artist's interpretation of me shooting.


Now for Lesbians:

On Saturday night, we went to see
Margaret Cho do a show at the casino. I have always loved Margaret Cho, since her days on the show "All-American Girl" and her stand up filled with imitations of her mother. She has moved into the political activist arena (particularly gay rights) and I support her there as well. She says all those things that I think (liberal feminist hippie freak that I am) on a big stage with cameras everywhere. She was in town as part of the Gay Pride weekend festivities. We had a big parade on Saturday (TONS of gays into the winery that day) and she was on Saturday night. I enjoyed every moment of it, and felt empowered and rejuvenated and really blessed to have two of my favorite gals (my mom and sis couldn't make it) by my side. Hey, even the boys had a good time! They were guarding their nuts the whole time against all the gays, but they were laughing their asses off.

4 comments:

Dirty Bunny said...

I fired a gun once. I was aiming for the broad-side of a barn. Ya know that saying, "Can't hit the broad side of a barn"? Yeah, I think I invented it, just like Al Gore invented the internet.

Girl Next Door said...

I LOVE Miss Cho!!

And oh yea...my one and only time shooting....miss the soda can, got the squirell.

Anonymous said...

As long as you're picking artist's impressions of you shooting, can I pick one too?

HST said...

Well at least they named something after you DB.

Juicy: I figure as long as you're hitting SOME kind of target, that counts!

Joe: That is such an appropriate representation that it's almost a photo.