Taking aim……….

Couldn’t resist, learning goes beyond photography….. Late this afternoon I completed my course to get a Concealed Weapons Permit in the State of Kentucky.  The last step in the process is a written test, I scored a 96, and a trip to the range.  I was a little nervous since I bought a Glock 23 a .40 caliber about the time I had shoulder surgery and didn’t feel it would be a good idea to try and shoot it  until my shoulder healed up.  I never got around to it, until today.  You shoot a human size target and have to have at least 11 of 20 in the black area of the target.

They allow you to practice as long as you want before your 20 shot test begins.  I put in a magazine and fired off my first 10 shots, when I looked at the target I told by instructor,  “lets just make this the test”, I finished with 21 shots all in the center mass, 12 in the center circle!  I did what I used to tell my football players to do when they scored a touchdown, stay cool, and act like you’ve been there before!  I was more shocked than my instructor, but I didn’t let on……

I was raised in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky in Harlan County and my brother Homer was the hunter and better shot, but we used to go shooting together a lot when we were young and I remember how amazed I was at  his skill with a rifle.  He learned to bird hunt by letting me throw Gerber Baby Food jars over his shoulder from behind him with him shooting them on the fly in the air – with a .22 caliber rifle!!!!  Wow, what a shooter.  Then when he became a Dentist at Federal Prison he had to qualify at Glenco the facility in Georgia for Federal Law Enforcement Officers.  Here was this 61 year old Dentist mixed in with a bunch of 20 year old eager Homeland Security folks.  To there shock he hit 49 or 50 on the pistol range, 149 of 150 on the Rifle range.  My wife, Sherelene,  who was a Nurse Practitioner in a Federal Prison for a short time did virtually the same thing when she hit the range in Glenco.  When the fire arms instructor asked her who she was an where she was from, she said, my husband is from Harlan County.  He simply said, “that explains it…..”   I was under a little pressure to live up to my heritage!

I’ve always loved guns, target shooting and collecting, it was a way of life back in the mountains.  I don’t want to  shoot anybody, I have no plans to ever raise a gun in anger or with the intent  to harm someone, but our rights to own and use firearms in our society is under attack.  I want to be able to legally own a gun for the protection of my family.  I pray I will never shoot it anywhere but on the range.   But if I ever had to, I know how.

*Photo made with my iPhone, yellow circles marking the shot placements in Keynote.