The all-important items: A clock radio, a book light, a Chapstick, a phone, and a gun. It’s in a Lifejacket clamshell with the key inside, so that I can lock it and put it out of reach of children at a moment’s notice. There’s also a standing rule in my home that children are not allowed to go upstairs without an adult present, just in case I ever forget to lock it up.

My night table items have sure changed since I lived in NJ. Oh, wait, no. Only the gun has been added.

You know, before I had guns, if I heard a noise like that, my adrenaline would be pumping and my heart would be thumping as I crept downstairs with a baseball bat in one hand and the phone in the other. I used to think it was the good kind of adrenaline, but now I’m thinking not so much, because I was calm, cool, and collected while I checked the great room, the guest bedroom, and finally, the laundry room.

What a difference a gun makes.

It was a travel coffee mug that had fallen off the shelf, onto the dryer (which was running), and into the laundry basket.

My condo is now safe from flying coffee mugs.

Nah, I didn’t shoot it. I put it back on the shelf where it belongs.

Update: Thanks to the person who put this post on Linkiest!
Update: Thanks, Glenn and Bill!

He had a great time.

So did I. We’ll have an even better time if he gets a chance to visit me in Richmond, where we can shoot indoors. Or at least, if we go outside, in much warmer weather.

22 out of 25 in trap shooting the first time you’ve ever shot a real shotgun is pretty damned good. My nephew is, as my father would say, a chip off the old block. Dad was a marksman in the army in WWII.

Nephew is joining the Marines. He’ll be in boot camp in a couple of months, unless a slot opens up sooner. Things are going to get very different this year.

Things started out badly. Though I bought the gun last summer, I hadn’t used it yet, and I did not hit the target at all (I thought) with my first few shots. So I asked for help. Turns out I was just not used to the sight, and was sighting the angle all wrong. With a little help from one of the employees, and from the guy next to me, who turned out to be quite the marksman, my aim improved significantly. This is the target with the last 8 sets of practice, numbered so I could see where I was hitting with each set.

As you can see, I pull up and to the left, but overall, if that target was a man’s chest, I pretty much killed my guy.

Next time, I’ll bring my .22 rifle and do some plain old fun shooting. I’d forgotten how much kick a .38 has. And how LOUD the shooting range is. (Note to self: Put in earplugs before entering the range.)

Oh, and the very nice gentleman next to me, besides helping me to learn how to aim my new gun, let me fire his wife’s 9mm semi-automatic. It’s the next weapon I’m looking to purchase, because my revolver is a fun gun, but it only holds five rounds. For home defense, I want something with a little more to it.

Best comment of the afternoon was from the same guy, who, after seeing the target above, asked, “Is that the first time you’ve ever shot that gun?” And when I told him yes, he said that was pretty good shooting.

Overall, a very nice afternoon, ending with a lovely dinner at Sarah and Larry’s. Sarah’s going to learn to shoot with me sometime soon. Girls with guns. Gotta watch out for us.

LAKE LYNN, Pa. — An 85-year-old great-grandmother from Lake Lynn, Fayette County kept an alleged burglar at bay using a .22-caliber pistol.

According to police, a 17-year-old suspect was attempting to burglarize Leda Smith overnight.

That’s when Smith grabbed her gun and told the teen that she would shoot him if he moved, police said.

“I had the gun on him before he turned around and said, ‘you’ve had it,’ ” Smith told Channel 11-News.

According to police, Smith ordered the boy to dial 911 and then gave him some advice.

“Dial 911 and don’t attempt to throw the phone at me, or do anything bad or i’ll just shoot you,” Smith said.

When police arrived, they took the teen into custody.

Makes my .22 rifle seem a bit less of a toy and more of a serious weapon.

I am now an armed American. Mind you, I won’t be shooting them until I get all the cleaning stuff and, uh, learn how to clean and maintain them. But now I can go shooting at a range without having to rent a thing.

More about this later.

The Smith & Wesson made my hand tired after a few uses. It also rather surprised me the first time I fired it. Oops. Bit more of a kick than the .22. I need to build up my hand and arm muscles. I should go back to to the rock climbing gym. You use many of the same muscles to climb as you do to hold a gun and fire it.

There were an awful lot of young men at the range today, and one of them rented what looked like a military semi-automatic rifle. I have absolutely no desire to try a weapon like that, but I was curious enough to stay until I saw him fire it. I think I may head back on my own and rent one of the rifles. Now that I no longer teach on Sundays, I finally have the time to hit the ranges and see what I like. Although it’s a rather expensive habit, but I was warned about that.

My new teacher declared himself very satisfied with my shooting skills today. I was thinking I really need to renew my prescription. It was getting tough to sight the target clearly. But overall, I did well enough to stop an attacker. Most of my shots were within a five-inch range, Joe said.

I think two or three more trips to the range will be enough for me to make up my mind about which guns to buy. The crime rate in my neighborhood is sure convincing me I need one. The range holds classes every other weekend. I’m busy this weekend, but two weeks after the Fourth, I think I’ll take that all-day class and learn about the gun laws in Virginia, shooting and cleaning a weapon, and protecting yourself with your Second Amendment right.

Overall, I think my second Second Amendment lesson went really well.

Report, and maybe pictures, tomorrow evening.

I have nothing to say about the Colorado church shootings, except to express my horror and shock. The fact that the church had an armed guard probably saved many lives.

I am so far from the anti-gun person I was in my twenties, that I barely recognize that person any more.

Off to my staff meeting in northern VA. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to talk about while I’m gone.

Which is why I spent Sunday afternoon at the Blue Ridge Arsenal in northern Virginia learning to load, shoot, and unload four different kinds of handguns. Plus a rifle.

These are the pistols I used. There’s a Ruger Single-Six and a Colt Woodsman, both .22′s, a Colt Official Police revolver (circa 1940), and an Enfield Mark 2 (.38). There was also a Stevens 15-B .22 rifle.

My teacher, Stretch, is an ex-police officer. He spent some time beforehand teaching me how each of the guns are opened, loaded, and closed. We did this, of course, without loading the weapons at Chris and Janet’s. However, I got really good at shooting empty guns at the fireplace logs to get the feel of the trigger and the gun. I was also tickled to hear Stretch compliment me on holding my finger properly off the trigger of each weapon until actually firing it. Because believe it or not, I learned that from reading military bloggers. Their posts making fun of faux soldiers, terrorists, and fauxtography taught me how to hold a weapon properly.

After Stretch was satisfied that I had a good idea of how to use the guns, we drove to the shooting range. We had to wait a while, and I looked over the various weapons and gear. I got a kick out of the pocketbooks that come complete with a holster inside for your weapon.

While we were waiting, I could hear some very loud reports from inside the shooting range. I didn’t realize it was going to be that loud, and I have to say, I was starting to get scared. I was wondering if maybe this was one of the stupidest things I’d ever decided to do. By the time it was our turn, I was pretty positive I was going to hate it. Inside the range it was even worse—we had earplugs and ear protection, but it was loud and startling and I was getting really nervous. But I figured I was there, I’d paid, I may as well at least try to shoot. Stretch started me on the rifle at three yards.

You know, it took exactly one shot to make my nerves disappear. I loaded the rifle, locked the bolt, cocked the hammer, aimed, and fired. And I hit the target. Where it counts. This was the result of my first shot:

Granted, it was only three yards, but Stretch told me he started me out close to build up my confidence before moving on to tougher targets. It totally worked. I spent the next few minutes loading, shooting, clearing out the shell casing, loading, shooting, clearing out the shell casing… it was kinda cool to see the little pieces of metal go flying out of the rifle. (I saved the shell casing from my first shot. Think I’ll drill a hole in it and add it to my keychain.) And we moved the target back to seven yards.

The rifle was the most fun to shoot. I’m thinking my first purchase is going to be a relatively inexpensive .22 rifle, especially since everyone tells me that you can buy a brick of 500 .22 rounds for about $10 at Wal-Mart. That’s a lot of hours of target shooting. Have I mentioned how much I really, really liked shooting that rifle?

I did spend much more time firing the pistols, however, and I now find myself rather fond of revolvers. Those were fun to load, fun to shoot, and fun to empty the casings out of. They were a lot harder to shoot than the other two, though.

You may notice that I shed my coat fairly quickly. That’s because I only noticed the cold about as long as I noticed the noise from the other lanes, which is to say, both went away after I started firing the rifle.

You can compare my hold and stance if you like. Damned if I can tell which gun was which in this picture. Not after two hours, anyway.

Oh, wait. That’s not a revolver. I think that’s the Colt Woodsman. I’m sure Stretch will correct me if I’m wrong.

My shooting got better as I went along, until, after about an hour, I started to tire and my groundhog started getting away. Okay, not really, but I didn’t get nearly as many shots in the bullseye area with the two revolvers as I had with the previous three guns. Here’s my favorite grouping, using the Colt Woodsman.

Stretch pointed out to me that if you take the targets we were using, and place them over a person’s chest, I pretty much destroyed my home invader at 21 feet. Now I begin to see the practical purpose behind target shooting. (All the shots in the corner were Stretch’s. He got his guy, too.) My first shot at the groundhog hit him square in the head. Wish I could say I was going for his brains, but I was aiming at the orange dot in the middle. I got that orange dot more than a few times.

I had fun. And I learned a new skill. Now that I’m back in Richmond, my plan is to find a shooting range nearby and take a course. While I was at the range in northern VA, I was absolutely struck by the thought that every single person in the lanes next to me had the capacity to kill every other person there. And so did I (albeit a little more slowly, what with all the .22 weapons we were using). I don’t think I ever paid closer attention to anything else I’ve learned in my life than I did to whatever Stretch told me. Well, except for the names and makes of the guns. While he was telling me the history, I was looking at the trigger, the hammer, the magazine, the chamber, and the other parts of the gun and making sure I understood exactly what to do with the moving parts. I made only one mistake at the range. I put an unloaded weapon on the counter in the lane pointing into the room, not at the target. I won’t make that mistake twice. It might even have been this one.

I think it is highly likely I will at least buy a rifle for target shooting. As for home protection, I haven’t gotten that far yet. I’ll make that decision after I’ve learned a heck of a lot more about handling guns. But I’ve come a long way from the Triple-L liberal that was scared to death to so much as touch a gun.

UPDATE: Linked at memeorandum.