Shooting Off My Mouth And Feeling Groovy--
When the first bullet struck, it tore into his right lung and then sailed right on out the back. They figured he could have survived this one. He was a big, strong, healthy man. He had called 911. He could have lasted the ten minutes it took to get professional help to the scene. They could have gotten him in and fixed him up. He would have lived.
The second bullet, however, nicked his heart, tearing through the muscle wall and starting a flood of blood that filled up his insides. This is the one that was the cause of death. A .38 revolver. Two shots at close range into the middle of the big man's chest. There was almost no way the guy could have missed. Pow pow! Like a game we all played as kids. Pow pow!
The big man fell after the second shot. The man who shot him, ripped off his watch and took his wallet. The man who shot him turned his suitcase upside down and found another .38. This was the big man's protection. The robber took this too, and ran from the Atlanta, Georgia motel room and then disappeared. He was never found by the police under the name he had been using, and never charged with this crime. Odds are he was arrested for a different crime under a different name somewhere else. Such is the way, with these things.
The big man had crawled to the phone after the robber had left, dialed 911, and was able to give his location.
"I've been shot twice and robbed. I am in motel so and so, room number unlucky... Yes, I think I am dying..."
The big man gurgled in his own blood while he tried to stay conscious.
They figured he went the full ten minutes like this and then died right as the paramedics were asking him how he was.
I got the urge to take out my .22 rifle today and plink a few rounds into a log. I wanted to clean it and oil the stock, so I figured I'd empty the tube that holds the bullets the fun way. I haven't shot this little guy for maybe a year and a half. I was curious to see if I still "had it". As a plinker, I was always pretty gosh darn good.
So I stuck a log into the crux of an oak tree and walked back to the house. Just over ninety feet away I turned and pow pow pow pow pow pow pow ...I let loose seven shots as fast as I could, hoping to hit the damn end of the log with each one.
I walked back to the log and checked. Cool. I could still group rapid shots from a standing position in a seven inch circle.
"That's somebody's face" I used to tell myself.
I wondered if I could still really shoot, though? I mean really shoot...
I went into the garage and got a cap for a white-paint spray can. I tacked this onto the center of the log. I walked back my ninety feet and took aim. Inhale... exhale till you feel a good level of comfort in your lungs and then hold, squeeze the trigger... easy... Pow.
I emptied the gun. Eight careful shots. Eight times, I hit the cap from ninety feet. Six of the eight grouped tight about one inch to the right of dead center. We had a strong left to right wind going today.
Yep. I can still plink with the best of them.
If I shot a couple boxes of ammo I'd be hitting a quarter at 90 feet with an open sight from a standing position on every shot. The only person I know who does that is my brother, though I know there are lots of other people who can out there, I just don't get around those people.
With an empty gun in hand now, I sat down and started rubbing steel wool over the stock. I had picked up some scuff marks over the last few years moving this "toy" around, and I wanted to rub them out.
I never knew the big man who was shot. It happened nine months before I entered into the scene. My parents separated when I was 12, and at 13, I suddenly had a ten year old step-brother who had just lost a father to a murder, and a seven year old step-sister and a three year old step-sister.
My Pops' new fiance was a widow still sensitive to the mention of anything that went pow pow pow, and now my brother Steve and I were going to have to live with her.
The man who shot and robbed their father had robbed before. Four days prior, in the same motel, he had stolen a man's .38.
Some other man had left it hidden in his suitcase and gone down the road for a meal.
The robber had been a recent hire at the motel, and was supposed to have been doing maintenance.
The irony of all of this never fails to escape me.
My step-brother and step-sister's don't care much for guns. They resented my father for quite sometime for having to replace their murdered father.
My father gave me this gun when I was about eight. I grew up shooting this little guy, and it gave me hours and hours of enjoyment and never caused me any harm.
I think about my step-brother's father though, everytime I now go pow pow pow.
The second bullet, however, nicked his heart, tearing through the muscle wall and starting a flood of blood that filled up his insides. This is the one that was the cause of death. A .38 revolver. Two shots at close range into the middle of the big man's chest. There was almost no way the guy could have missed. Pow pow! Like a game we all played as kids. Pow pow!
The big man fell after the second shot. The man who shot him, ripped off his watch and took his wallet. The man who shot him turned his suitcase upside down and found another .38. This was the big man's protection. The robber took this too, and ran from the Atlanta, Georgia motel room and then disappeared. He was never found by the police under the name he had been using, and never charged with this crime. Odds are he was arrested for a different crime under a different name somewhere else. Such is the way, with these things.
The big man had crawled to the phone after the robber had left, dialed 911, and was able to give his location.
"I've been shot twice and robbed. I am in motel so and so, room number unlucky... Yes, I think I am dying..."
The big man gurgled in his own blood while he tried to stay conscious.
They figured he went the full ten minutes like this and then died right as the paramedics were asking him how he was.
I got the urge to take out my .22 rifle today and plink a few rounds into a log. I wanted to clean it and oil the stock, so I figured I'd empty the tube that holds the bullets the fun way. I haven't shot this little guy for maybe a year and a half. I was curious to see if I still "had it". As a plinker, I was always pretty gosh darn good.
So I stuck a log into the crux of an oak tree and walked back to the house. Just over ninety feet away I turned and pow pow pow pow pow pow pow ...I let loose seven shots as fast as I could, hoping to hit the damn end of the log with each one.
I walked back to the log and checked. Cool. I could still group rapid shots from a standing position in a seven inch circle.
"That's somebody's face" I used to tell myself.
I wondered if I could still really shoot, though? I mean really shoot...
I went into the garage and got a cap for a white-paint spray can. I tacked this onto the center of the log. I walked back my ninety feet and took aim. Inhale... exhale till you feel a good level of comfort in your lungs and then hold, squeeze the trigger... easy... Pow.
I emptied the gun. Eight careful shots. Eight times, I hit the cap from ninety feet. Six of the eight grouped tight about one inch to the right of dead center. We had a strong left to right wind going today.
Yep. I can still plink with the best of them.
If I shot a couple boxes of ammo I'd be hitting a quarter at 90 feet with an open sight from a standing position on every shot. The only person I know who does that is my brother, though I know there are lots of other people who can out there, I just don't get around those people.
With an empty gun in hand now, I sat down and started rubbing steel wool over the stock. I had picked up some scuff marks over the last few years moving this "toy" around, and I wanted to rub them out.
I never knew the big man who was shot. It happened nine months before I entered into the scene. My parents separated when I was 12, and at 13, I suddenly had a ten year old step-brother who had just lost a father to a murder, and a seven year old step-sister and a three year old step-sister.
My Pops' new fiance was a widow still sensitive to the mention of anything that went pow pow pow, and now my brother Steve and I were going to have to live with her.
The man who shot and robbed their father had robbed before. Four days prior, in the same motel, he had stolen a man's .38.
Some other man had left it hidden in his suitcase and gone down the road for a meal.
The robber had been a recent hire at the motel, and was supposed to have been doing maintenance.
The irony of all of this never fails to escape me.
My step-brother and step-sister's don't care much for guns. They resented my father for quite sometime for having to replace their murdered father.
My father gave me this gun when I was about eight. I grew up shooting this little guy, and it gave me hours and hours of enjoyment and never caused me any harm.
I think about my step-brother's father though, everytime I now go pow pow pow.
10 comments:
Good shootin tex.
It's a shame that these terrible people take our loved ones away.
The black market in guns is rampant as ever. I keep mine under lock and key unless it's in my belt.
Stolen guns account for a huge amount of murder weapons.
I had a guy offer me a stolen gun collection for 900 bucks. I called the cops and they didn't care or respond.
Until they start enforcing the 20,000 gun laws that are on the books this murderous crap will keep on happening.
Hammer-- I'd like to see those laws reduced to about twenty. Simple. Easy to follow. Sensical. Everybody knows the rules...
Hand guns getting away from decent people and into the hands of the indecent is the biggest problem we have in America concerning guns.
I don't care much for them either.
Guns frighten me. But so do switchblades.
I understand owning a rifle for hunting and for farmers etc to get rid of unwanted wildlife and protect their livestock. Even shooting for the pleasure of hitting a target sounds ok - not much different than darts. But toting a gun around for protection just doesn't seem to make sense. It's probably not so handy when you need it and it could get into the wrong hands.
I would like to try target practise sometime anyway.
I like how you resist a simple answer here. Guns aren't the problem--morality, or rather its absence, is. Thanks for the beautifully-written piece!
Captivating story...thank you for sharing. Well, at least since your father raised you with guns, you have respect for them & know better than to leave them in a suitcase when staying in a hotel. Sad. I'm glad they eventually caught that dickwad and seem to remember that on the news...if it was like close to a dozen years ago.
I’ve been shooting pretty much since I was old enough to have someone hold a gun up while I pulled the trigger, and pulled the trigger, and pulled the trigger. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something that might earn me a few dirty looks. I don’t think anybody should be able to carry or own a gun, except me. All of the guns on the entire planet should be confiscated and turned over to me so that I can quit worrying about all of those infinitely self-replicating gunsels who crowd the stalls of firing ranges like little kids under a Christmas tree and leave their trash on dirt roads from sea to shining sea. With alarmingly few exceptions, I haven’t stood next to a shooter in over thirty years without repeatedly looking straight down their barrels, but it’s ok they say, because “it’s not loaded.” And then there’s that idiocy about “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The fact is, idiots kill people and so do children, frightened grannies, stumbling hunters and there are even documented cases of guns discharging and killing people without the physical intervention of human beings during auto accidents, violent storms, out of control sexual encounters and demon possession, so in fact, guns do kill people as surely as collapsing buildings and faulty brake systems kill people. It is for this reason that I also believe that only I should be able to occupy buildings, drive cars and wear clothes. Clothes don’t kill people, I just think I should be the only one who gets to wear clothes…or vote. I would also agree to a system where every single person who owns a gun would have to recertify every five years and if they failed to meet standards, they would be paraded naked through a dog kennel with pork chops tied to their testicles and a sign around their neck saying “I’m a bumbling fool who demanded the right to carry a gun but never learned how to not accidentally kill my family and my neighbors.” Or we could just keep everything exactly how it is, which is ok too. My pain pills are kicking in, can you tell? If anybody has a serious disagreement with the premise of my comment, I agree with your position completely so there’s no argument here.
Slaghammer, methinks your sleep meds need upping...
Hi! To crankster and skinnylittleblonde. Thanks for dropping by.
Jeannie, I've never seen a knife that scared me. I've seen a lot of packing knuckleheads that do, for the resons slaghammer attempted to mention... Get yourself a GOOD pellet gun if you want to target shoot. Cheaper ammo, and quieter and just as much fun.
Thanks for another thought-provoking post, Scott. I, too, grew up in Oregon shooting guns for target practice, but now that I have kids I am terrified of all of the people out there who go through most of their lives without being fully mentally present. I'm with you about fewer simpler gun laws. If we have to have training and a license to drive a car, methinks the very least we can do is require the same for guns. Duh!
Guns are bad.
I'm a nurse, I've seen the damage.
They should all be banned. All of them!
Need to kill your food, buy a freakin' bow and arrow!
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