April 30: Beth and Melanie are worn out, frankly
After everybody was through deciding whether or not to put themselves through scenario hell, we all tromped back into the classroom for a final debrief. Commander Barsness summarized the principles we’d been covering in various ways throughout the day.
Commander Barsness: “Who did the shoot/don’t shoot scenarios?”
I didn’t look around to see a show of hands. From his satisfied expression, a number of us went through them.
Commander Barsness: “Did you react the way you expected you would?”
No, we did not.
Commander Barsness: “But when you went through the second time, you reacted differently, right? Each time we do it a little differently, a little better.”
Everyone else in class: “Uh-huh. Yes. Yeah.”
Me: “No. . . I’d do the same thing every time, actually. . .”
Commander Barsness (trying not to laugh): “Well, and that’s okay too.”
The Commander told us that the learning part of the day was over and we were welcome to take off if we wanted to. But if we wanted to stick around, they were setting up stations for anybody who wanted to try shooting police-issue guns.
Did I? Absolutely. My stories are about an alternate-reality Seaside, OR, in which magical creatures are real and living side-by-side with humans. An agency is needed to keep order, a Men In Black sort of thing. I invented the BNT: Bureau of Negotiation and Trade. These folks are supposed to be a combination of law officer and mythology specialist, and as I said way back in the first post, I want to be sure I make the law officer part as close to real policing as possible (within the scope of the story and story world).
The BNT are law enforcement, therefore they shoot guns. Prior to the Camp Bonneville excursion, I’d shot one hand gun, one time, back in my mid-twenties. We’re talking thirty years ago.
The sergeants (or more likely, their lackey trainees, who had also been the arguing people in the shoot/don’t shoot scenarios and wore the padded suits for the taser demos) had set up three stations with canvas canopies. Under each canopy was a table piled with boxes of ammo. The lackeys were loading magazines with bullets as quickly as they could, five bullets per magazine.
They gave us ear protection (a pair of orange headphones that fit very tightly.) Then we all lined up and waited for our chance to shoot toward the targets and hit the big dirt hill behind them. (I say “we,” but if you recall, a number of those people were former military and law enforcement. Target shooting was not shiny and new.)
I spent the first ten minutes watching other people shoot, studying their stance, the way they held their arms and shoulders, the way the weapons moved when someone pulled the trigger. Then I got in the line for the handgun without a laser sight. I didn’t catch that there was a handgun with a laser sight and a handgun without, but if I had known, I’d have chosen the one without, anyway. It seemed like I’d learn the most if I had to figure out how to aim without help.
Here is how you hold a handgun:
- Hold your right hand up so you’re looking at the back of it. The scoop between your thumb and first finger is the part that goes against the back of the gun. There’s a small piece at the top of the gun that sticks out past the butt; you scoot your hand up until it’s pressing against that piece.
- Curl your fingers around the handle of the gun, but press the pad of your thumb against the side.
- Wrap the fingers of your left hand over the fingers of your right hand. The sides of your thumbs should be pressed together.
- Now shift your left hand slightly, so that you could pull the trigger with your left index finger. DO NOT let your finger rest on the trigger. Extend it and press it against the side of the gun until you’re ready to shoot.
- When you look forward along the gun barrel you’ll see a raised bit with a notch in the middle. It’s on the tip of the barrel-end. There will be two more little notches further up the barrel. You want to center the gun so that you are looking through the space between the two notches, and at the notch on the tip of the barrel. Let your vision blur slightly, so that your sharp focus is on that notch on the tip, and the center of the target is in the background.
- Pull the trigger.
A handgun jumps in your hand when you fire; there’s nothing you can do to keep it straight. You pull the trigger, and an explosion drives the bullet out of the barrel, then lifts the end of the barrel. It happens in a millisecond. Trigger-bullet-barrel pops up. Suddenly the gun is pointed at a spot well above the target, and you need to take aim again.
Sergeant Sofianos showed me what to do. I fired my five shots. After the last one, he beamed at me and said, “Good job! You hit the eight!”
Okay, first of all, they weren’t giving us new targets because of the expense (and because a percentage of us wouldn’t hit the targets anyway.) So somehow, Sergeant Sofianos knew which of the million bullet holes on the target was mine.
Secondly, here is a picture of a target. Note where the number eight region is:
The level of praise I received for hitting the eight—one time—was perhaps excessive. Sort of like praising a toddler for walking from one end of the room to the other without falling down.
Okay, but it made me happy anyway. I mean, the muscles.
One of my classmates said, “There’s a deer!”
There was, indeed, a deer. The shooting range was level because a hill had been excavated to create it, which meant it sat at the bottom of a man-made cliff. At the top of the cliff, to the right of the targets, a deer was munching on a tree and staring at us. You could see what was going through its tiny, prey-animal mind: “Huh. The humans are making noise again. This tree tastes pretty good.”
Another classmate said, “They know when it’s hunting season.”
After a few more bites, the deer wandered off. You’ve seen one group of humans shooting at a mound of dirt, you’ve seen ‘em all. There are a lot of trees out there that need eating before hunting season starts. You have to set yourself a schedule and stick to it.
I got in the line for the rifle.
Here is an important thing to know about rifles: they are twice as loud as handguns. A handgun’s bang has a noise level comparable to holding one of those awful, screaming fireworks next to your ear. A shogun is like standing next to an airplane. BOOOM. A comet just crashed.
All those descriptions of people having bruises on their shoulders? Nope. The butt of a rifle does rest in a spot on your chest just above your armpit, but rifles are much heavier than handguns, so they don’t bounce around. They’re just really freakin’ loud.
I got to the head of the line and they handed me another magazine with five bullets. This time, it was poor Sergeant Schmidt who had to help me. He already looked distressed.
He showed me where to put the butt of the rifle, and how to put my right hand about halfway up the barrel to steady the gun. My left hand stayed on the handle, the thumb and three fingers wrapped around it. The pointer finger, as with the handgun, stayed pressed to the side of the rifle until I was ready to pull the trigger.
The rifle had a laser sight. This was difficult to manage because my ear protection kept getting in the way. I was supposed to look in the scope until I saw the red laser pointing at the target, but I couldn’t see the laser. I didn’t have the heart to tell Sergeant Schmidt. I could see the pain in his eyes.
You don’t just yank your finger back; you do a steady pull. I hit the dirt hill four times. The fifth time I finally saw the laser, and hit the dirt hill anyway.
Sergeant Schmidt looked like he needed a couple of Tums and a hug. He did not say, “Good job.” On the other hand, he did not say, “Never touch a rifle again.” There’s a guy with nerves of steel. Who was probably considering an early retirement by the time I handed him the rifle. Which I forgot to point at the ground. Yes. Nerves of steel.
Beth did choose the handgun with the laser sight. The laser sight was a new experience for her. You will recall that Beth went through Basic Training when she was in the military; she learned to shoot a rifle accurately enough to qualify for enlistment. One of the old-school rifles that didn’t come with a laser sight, which made her experience somewhat comparable to mine, except that Beth can hit a target.
Beth looked like a boss. That’s just all there is to it. She held that gun and fired it like she shot things with a handgun every day before breakfast. It was awesome. I have photos.
Right before the demo was over, Sergeant Schmidt showed off a WWII Tommy gun the Sheriff’s Office inherited from. . . somewhere. (If you work for the Sheriff’s Office, you inherit Tommy guns.) The thing was at least ten pounds. A magazine full of bullets added an additional half-pound of weight.
Sergeant Schmidt: “Back in World War II, guys used to carry these things around while wearing rounds strapped to their chests. That’s a lot of weight to carry on a battlefield.”
Sergeant Schmidt demonstrated the use of the Tommy gun. It was even louder than the rifle with the laser sight, and there was a lot of smoke. Since the Tommy gun was an early-model machine gun, it spat out three bullets at a time. Ba-da-dat. Pause. Ba-da-dat. Those three-bullet shots made a tennis ball-sized dent in the wood behind the target.
This was the moment the lackeys had been waiting for. They’d been fake-arguing and setting up canopies and shoving bullets in magazines and wearing the tasing suit all day long, awaiting the moment they would get to shoot the tommy gun. Ba-da-dat. Ba-da-dat. Deputy Jeannie got to try it, too. She was a crack shot. Somebody with Marilyn Monroe eyeliner should not be able to casually lift an antique rifle and blast holes in the center of a target.
Sergeant Schmidt lowered the rifle (and pointed it at the ground), then turned to the class. “Who recently had a birthday?”
A young woman squealed and waved her hand. Her birthday was last week. Nobody there could beat that, so the sergeant (probably thanking his lucky stars that Melanie’s birthday is months away) coached the young woman through aiming and firing the rifle. Ba-da-dat. Careful, the barrel gets hot on one of these. Ba-da-dat.
We had a few minutes left, so Sergeant Schmidt asked who among us was the oldest. It was Henry, the 238-year-old rookie!
Henry did not need coaching. He lifted the gun to his shoulder, aimed, and ba-da-dat! Shot that target dead center. Dead. Center. Then he handed the gun back and strolled away, grinning. Henry was big and bad. We could not deny it.
Thus our day at Camp Bonneville concluded, and we were dismissed.
Beth and I hustled back to my car. Somehow, we were first out of the parking lot. A 2016 gray Kia Forte hatchback, at the front of a line of massive trucks and SUVs. We looked like a tugboat pulling a cruiser.
Beth: “You know, it’s a shame we couldn’t use fresh targets. I mean, I’m sure it’s because of the expense. But I had no way to judge how well I did.”
Odds are, she hit closer to center than the eight.
By the time we reached Vancouver, we were weary. We were cold. We were hungry. Our friend Diane texted to ask if we wanted to get together for dinner at Wahi Hana.
We did.
I dropped Beth off at her house. I put on a shirt that didn’t have a Sheriff’s Office logo on it. And then I picked Beth up, and we went to a tiki bar.
To clarify: it was after the guns, Sheriff Horch. Well after. And we only had TWO BEERS.
Coming soon: Beth and Melanie visit the jail!
