Shooting stuff

Sometimes the thought of watching another local band shimmy around on stage makes my cold little heart sink. And the idea of sitting in a coffee shop staring at artsy dudes and their beards makes my testicles shrivel up into my stomach.

But on a nice spring day, you’ve just got to leave the house. That’s what my mom said, and I’m sticking with it.

So David Kulczyk (the angry freelancer) and I decide to shoot guns. We pack up a shitload of artillery and head off toward the butt crack of Egypt, also known as Woodland. When we park at the Yolo Sportsman’s Association, the sun is shining, the wind blowing, and gunshots snap like paparazzi cameras at an Octo-Mom sighting.

While there are countless rules when you go to a shooting range (like “A whistle blown means no shooting immediately” or “No smoking while shooting”), the shooting range might benefit from even more. Rules like “Don’t yell ‘Break yo’self, muthafucka!’ right before you pull the trigger”; “Don’t pretend you’re DMX and growl at your targets” or “Don’t wear a pillowcase with eye holes cut out and yell at the other shooters to ‘Wake up!’” might all be appropriate ones to add.

Unfortunately, we had to set up at the 50-yard targets, because a bunch of rug rats took up the closer ones. Unless you’re a mob hit man, 50 yards is way too far. Kulczyk was a whiz with the 12-gauge shotgun, but I had no luck. That thing’s too cumbersome and too hard to aim. The .380 semiautomatic and the .38 detective special, however, are fine little weapons. The feeling of holding a gun and pulling the trigger can be compared to sex (obviously) and buffet-style dining (not so obviously). There’s a certain power, fulfillment and purpose attained when you hold a gun and shoot something with it.

Everyone, even if you’re a shivering, yoga-loving liberal, put down your yerba mate tea and go to a shooting range once in your life. It’s enlightening. More enlightening than the Bhagavad Gita.

As the saying goes: Give a man a gun and he’ll probably blow his balls off; teach a man to shoot and he’ll probably blow your balls off.

Is that how that saying goes?