The bad guy was holding a gun to the hostage’s head.
“Okay, Nick, you’ve only got one shot here,” I thought while bringing the pistol up in both hands. I stepped back slightly with my left foot and lined the sights up with a spot just above the bad guy’s sunglasses. I took a breath, held it, gently squeezed the trigger, and … BANG.
The pistol jumped in my hand, muzzle flash obscuring the target. I blinked my eyes behind the safety glasses, and looked toward the target. Bad guy didn’t have a scratch on him. The hostage, on the other hand, had a neat hole dead center between her eyes.
That spot on the Olympic pistol team, it seems, is not assured.
While my pistol shooting—as my two dimensional hostage can attest—leaves something to be desired, I can place a decent group of rounds at 50 yards with a rifle. Quigley Down Under with a rifle I ain’t, but it helps make up for my pistol work.
People shoot—or don’t—for different reasons. Hunting, personal defense, or just for sport, ask five different people at the range why they shoot, and you’re liable to get five different answers.
I’m something of an in-between. My dad and all his side of the family grew up in Indiana, where hunting was a way of life. My mom, on the other hand, was never a big fan of guns or hunting. They reached a compromise, and I got my first .22 when I was 5 years old, but I never ended up hunting anything bigger than rabbits or squirrels.
At the Sun office, for example, opinions on shooting run the gamut from “I start crying anytime I think about shooting,” to “Hey, I’ve got four shotguns, when do we go?”
Some people (like just about everyone on my dad’s side of the family) grew up hunting for sport. Or there was my godfather, who would bring home elk to feed his family.
Growing up in Louisiana and Arizona, you could get away with driving out to the middle of nowhere, setting your targets up and having at it. Used to be there were even some places around here that you could drive out to and go shooting.
Times change, however, and if you’re looking for places to go shooting in Santa Maria, Range Masters and the Santa Maria Gun Club are your best bets.
Range Masters will rent you a pistol and ammunition to use on their indoor range, and the guys who work there are friendly and helpful, even if you’ve never held a gun in your life.
It’s here at Range Masters that I find myself with our photographer from the Sun, Steve E. Miller. It’s been two months since I “rescued” the hostage, and for some unfathomable reason I made the mistake of telling Steve that story. He tries not to cackle, but I’m pretty sure I’ve just dumped blood in the water.
It’s not without a certain amount of glee that he sets the pistol down after we each take our turns firing at the target. Steve’s groups are all within a 2-3 inch diameter. Mine … Well, mine were at least all on the paper.
That’s when Steve tells me it’s only the third time in his life he’s ever fired a pistol.
Next time we’ll go skeet shooting.
Contact Staff Writer Nicholas Walter at nwalter@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 21-28, 2009.
