Shooting With My Dad
by Rebecca Mayleben
Most weekends will find my dad and me at the local gun range sharpening our skills. Every time I take aim I am reminded of the first time I shot a gun...
United States Concealed Carry Association
USA - -(AmmoLand.com)- Often I am the only girl at the shooting range, but target shooting with my dad is one of my favorite hobbies.
The beginning of our shared interest grew from a night in an isolated desert camping spot. My parents and I had parked our motor home forty-five miles out of the small backwoods town of Safford, Arizona.
My dad likes to say, “We were the only human beings in the middle of twenty thousand acres.”
There was a symphony of coyote howls around us in the darkness.
Dad had a realization, “If Aruba [our family dog] was attacked, I would be helpless to save her.” He continued to think, “I would be equally helpless in front of the two legged version of a coyote and the cops are forty-five minutes away!”
When we returned home Dad started researching firearms and made the informed decision to purchase a gun. Since then Dad has taught me the different facts and techniques of shooting a gun properly. Most weekends will find my dad and me at the local gun range sharpening our skills. Every time I take aim I am reminded of the first time I shot a gun.
During the summer between fifth and sixth grade, my family caravanned west together with another family. The four adults had been friends since college, way before any of their children were born. Sami, Wendy, Angela, and I have been friends, literally, since we were born. Coming from Yellowstone in Wyoming, then Glacier in Montana, we were heading to Banff in Alberta, Canada, to complete our National Parks tour. Dad and Steve, the girls’ dad, had planned a surprise for us. During a stop in Montana, just before we crossed over into Canada, they took us all shooting. The dads thought this would be the best time because Steve could not bring his gun across the Canadian border as restricted by Canadian law. He was shipping it to a friend who has a Federal Firearm License permit, which allows the holder to ship and receive guns through a shipping company.
While sitting in the motor home we girls were instructed on the proper way to hold a gun and the function of each different part. When we set out to find a range, we had to drive around Belt, this little backwoods Montana town, for at least an hour or more without success. There were eight of us stuffed into a mini-van and the kids were getting bored and cranky. Finally, Steve and my dad found the police station where a local told them we could shoot in the old hay field the police used for practice. After making the drive out to the field, we had to climb over or under the barbed wire fence surrounding the place. We four girls shimmied under the fence, while the four adults used a blanket from the car to pad the fence, so they could climb over. Standing in the field I noticed the day was sunny and bright; a perfect day for shooting outdoors. The temperature was mild with a breeze blowing across the open field cooling what would otherwise have been an unbearably hot day in the boondocks of Montana.
We were shooting Steve’s semi-automatic Glock nine millimeter. On this type of gun the slide action cycles back and forth to cock the gun as it is fired. The gun has a type of sight known as a dot sight. There are two dots spaced out on the back of the slide and one dot centered on the front of the slide. When using a dot sight, you have to line up the three dots; the front dot has to be lined up between the back two dots. Then you put the lined up dots directly under your intended target.
Steve shot first to make sure everything on the gun was in working order. I watched as Sami, Wendy, and Angela shot their dad’s gun, before it was my turn. I did not want to go anywhere close to the big, scary piece of black plastic and metal known as a gun. As I was watching, I witnessed the multitude of moving pieces which could injure the shooter. The biggest fear I had was of the slide action. The slide travels directly over the shooter’s hand, and if his or her hand is up too high on the stock of the gun, it could be slammed back with a lot of force, ripped up by the edges of the slide, or can be pinched into the gun. I just did not want to push my luck.
After about an hour, all seven of the others in our group had taken their turn shooting. Steve and my dad were the only two in our group who had ever shot a gun before. I still had no desire to try, even after watching my mom shoot for her first time too. During her forth or fifth shot, a discharged brass cartridge flew from the gun and hit her in the head. Watching her as she tried to make sure the shell was off of her head was hilarious. She was flailing her hands, like she was trying to remove a bug from her hair, totally unconscious she still had the gun in her hand.
Even after everyone had a few turns, I had still not tried. My mom convinced me to shoot the gun at least once. She stressed how this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, not knowing then that three years later my dad would buy his own gun. Her impression was the loud sound of the gun firing was what was bothering me, even through the ear protection we were wearing.
Mom said, “If you do not try shooting, you may never get another chance, and you may regret it for the rest of your life.”
Still not optimistic, I went up to shoot. Steve explained he had not loaded the gun yet and told me to try pulling the trigger a few times, so I did as he instructed. After I felt comfortable with holding the gun and pulling the trigger, he loaded one bullet into the gun. I then tried sighting the gun. Sighting was a big challenge because I shoot with my right hand, but I use my left eye as my dominant eye to focus. I had to center my arms in front of my left eye, so I could focus on the target. Locking my right elbow, so I would not get hit in the head with the recoil of the gun, meant my left arm was bent at an irregular angle. After I had lined up the dot sight on the gun to the paper plate target, I pulled the trigger. I loved it. Then making sure the gun was clearly safe, I had handed it back to Steve to reload. The first words out of my mouth were, “Can I go again?” So I shot again and again and again. The surprised looks I received were priceless.
We had been in the field for a while when Steve suggested we four girls, Sami, Wendy, Angela, and I, have a sort of competition. There were only twelve rounds of ammunition left, so we each got three shots and our own clean paper plate. We shot in order of youngest to oldest. Angela being the youngest at seven went first with all of us watching. She hit her target once out of the three shots. Wendy, age nine, went next and missed all three shots. Then Sami, eleven years old, went up, and she too missed the target with all three shots. I am a few months older than Sami, so I took my turn last. Steve switched out the plates because Wendy and Sami wanted to keep theirs. I was again handed the loaded gun.
I sighted up the target and pulled the trigger. I hit in the lower edges of the plate. For my next shot, I forgot to sight it and actually closed my eyes; I wanted to make it so badly. I managed to blow the clothes pin holding up the plate to smithereens, but the shot still counted as hitting the target. For my third and final shot I did remember to sight up. I took a deep breath and then pulled the trigger. I had made it! Two inches away from the hole made by my first shot was the hole the third shot made. I was ecstatic, but I did not want to gloat in front of my three best friends. Inside I could only compare this feeling to winning my very first blue ribbon in a competitive Swim meet many years before, but I kept my feelings to myself.
When we got back to the campground, I searched the entire motor home until I found a sharpie permanent marker. On my target I wrote, “July 19, 2005, Becky M., Belt, Montana, 11 years old, and 3 bullets, 3 holes.” To this day my dad still has the paper plate and a picture of me shooting that day framed and hung up in his home office.
Now four years later, Dad recently told my aunt, “I’m proud of Becky’s mastery of such a complex activity and her accuracy.”
For himself, Dad currently owns a Springfield semi-automatic forty-five caliber and practices shooting on the weekends. As a big, not particularly athletic man, Dad likes the competitive nature of target shooting and appreciates the additional level of functional use which guns have for protection. Mom, on the other hand, has never shot a gun again and thinks it is a very expensive hobby without much return for her personally. Dad and I have had many conversations about gun safety and self-defense with a weapon.
He says, “Carrying a gun is not supposed to be comfortable, but comforting when faced with danger.”
In the end I feel ownership and proper use of guns depends on the character of the person wielding the firearm.
This is a paper written by 15 year old Rebecca for her freshman English Comp class (she earned an A on it).
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