June 18th,
A good sign.
This past Sunday was Father’s Day. As per our usual routine each Father’s Day in our house I
get certain privileges and immunities that do not necessarily carry forth to
other days of the year.
Chief among them is the ability to set our agenda for the
day. Normally I choose to be
conservative with my temporary dictatorial powers. The fact is, there are still chores to be done, and
errands to be run. My wife
encourages me to forgive these deadlines for a week, but being magnanimous I
choose not to. The knowledge that
I could ignore them is enough of a gift.
This year my wife and kids bought me a new watch. It is beautiful, but sized to fit a
gorilla. It would need to have the band adjusted before I could consider wearing it. We decided that we would run by the
mall where they had purchased it at the end of our errands to have it
resized.
As we left the mall in the early afternoon and headed home,
our route took us by the local indoor gun range. This is a nice facility, but one I really don’t frequent all
that often. I am a member at an
outdoor private range about an hour south of us. Since I am really more of a rifleman than a pistol
aficionado I need a range that allows me to shoot at least 100 yards. Indoor ranges (well most indoor ranges)
are limited to 25 yard shooting distances.
Occasionally though I have to confront the reality that I’m
really not that good of a pistol shot, and require some remedial practice. When I have the epiphanies I
head over to the far more convenient air conditioned indoor range.
Don’t get me wrong….I love pistol shooting…and I have a
handful of them in my safe. It’s
just that shooting for me is part of my hunting activity, and I don’t hunt with
handguns. I know I’m a pretty good
rifle shot…and ummm…well…a not so great pistol shot…and for some reason I tend
to go with my strengths and slight the areas that need work.
All that said, when we left the mall and I saw the shooting
range I had an idea. Today I would
use my Father’s Day pass. This was
a perfect opportunity to get some pistol shooting in and not feel guilty about
intruding on “family time”.
When we got home I quickly gathered together my shooting
supplies, and my Sig 229 semi-automatic (9mm lugar) and my absolutely beautiful
Ruger Vaquero 45 Long Colt Single Action Revolver…..(Yeah….I really do love
that one!)
 |
| My Sig 229 and my Ruger Vaquero |
When I arrived back at the range I was greeted by something
I was not prepared for.
People!
Hundreds of them!
This range has 25 lanes to shoot from, and they were
completely filled. What’s more the
lobby was packed with people waiting upwards of 3 hours for an empty lane. During this waiting time people were
milling around the lobby, and BUYING GUNS AT THE COUNTER!!! The range had at least five people working
their gun sales counter and three of them were filling out background check
papers for customers.
Well…I clearly was not going to get a chance to shoot. (I still had a Father’s Day dinner to
attended in a couple of hours).
I headed back to my truck and was pulling out of the parking
lot when one of the employees came out a side door to empty some trash. We made eye contact and I rolled down
my window:
“Is it always this busy?”
“This is a little unusual…probably Father’s Day and
all….normally it is only a half hour wait on the weekends.”
I smiled.
There are enough shooters to warrant a wait at the local
range.
That is a good sign.
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