In Which I Take The First Steps Towards An Alarming New Skill

[ursulav]

Here we have a post that I am more than a little afraid to write, but I will do it because I am me and I do not let good sense stop me. And also I have written sagas of having electrodes taped to my butt, and if y'all can handle that, you can handle anything.

And, perhaps most obviously, if I can do this, anybody can do it, and perhaps my stark

Comments

[anonymous]

I keep thinking I should learn target shooting because I can't draw a bow anymore, but I think my experience would be pretty similar.

[kithrup]

Yay!

Note: I am also very liberal. My parents were ... let's just say less so. They hunted deer every year, until my father's knees became a problem (which ended up killing him, but that's a tragedy for another time).

So... I've shot guns. Reasonable, but not great, shot.

But I hate them, and holding them causes me distress. (I do wonder if I'd feel that way about rifles, however.)

I hope your gunning goes well. If you're going to hunt, I want you to be an excellent shot. (I have no objections to hunting. Nor killing of animals -- I've had pet snakes and lizards, and have grown my own food for them, and always tried to avoid feeding a coherent rat to a snake.)

Also: yes you can put a Hello Kitty sticker on it, and you would not be the first person I've known to do that :).

[dragondances]

This is awesome and you are very brave! I'm a big ol' liberal too, but I was raised in Montana and... well, some things just come with living there. Although I've never done the "go out and shoot the animal dead" part, I've shot rifles at a range (with my Girl Scout troop, even). I've also done the bloody "cut the dead animal into tasty pieces to go in your freezer" part. You might want to consider that part before you do the hunting, actually, since getting your kill butchered by a professional can be ridiculously expensive.

I actually found when I was cooking the meat that there was a lot of comfort in knowing where it came from and how. Being able to trace it from "woods, back of truck, hanging in the back yard, freezer" was reassuring and made me feel more connected. Plus I saved some of the blood to do experiments with a friend in my high school Chem class! That teacher really liked us for some reason!

All this to say, good for you! You can totally be a huge liberal and also do the guns thing! And fill out forms like a boss!

[tuftears]

I would have been asking exactly the same questions that you have been!

I'm pretty sure people can get killed with a .22 (if not trivially) so I'm surprised there's no permit requirement... -_-

[roycalbeck]

The attempt on Reagan was with a .22 revolver, one round of which came within an inch of his heart.

[tuftears]

This is a thing I previously had not known!

[tuftears]

.22 shots are nasty. The bullet's got enough punch to enter a body but not enough to exit, so it'll bounce around and have to be removed.

[verdanthe]

you are the most adorable proto-deer-hunter ever (but still not the most liberal, sorry).

I want to hear all the steps in the development of this skill!

[schreibergasse]

Yeah, This, to both halves. We love you.

--Guy who once sat on a goat while a bow-hunter named Hummingbird slaughtered it.

PS: Also yes, venison. mmm.