In New Zealand to shoot a handgun you have to have a police-issued licence and belong to a gun club so the idea of just nipping down the road to pop off a few shots with an assault weapon was most curious, so much so that it became something I had to do. I swaggered out of the car and into the shooting range office and perused the guns on offer; a 9mm Glock was my weapon of choice, every hip hop artist I idolised as a teen spat lyrics about their Glock, I had to indulge my sick fetish. My English friend James chose a M16 semi-automatic rifle and my other friend an ex-American navy officer chose a Beretta we each bought a box of ammunition “Ma’m, Just take you ammunition and go down to the range you’ll get your gun there.” A cold trickle of fear seeped into me when I realised that no one had asked to see my ID and that not one shred of paper work had been presented. My eyes darted around groping the walls for safety instructions, disclaimers, precautions? Where the hell were all the safety rules? Alarm bells raged in my head. Why is it that I am treated like a visually impaired drooling infant by health and safety government zealots when I want to swim in a pool or catch a bus, but when I want to shoot a deadly weapon for fun I get subtle near invisible safety warnings. Instantly, I was gripped by a more terrifying reality I was entering a rule-less pit of gun nuts - my senses were on full alert.
We got our guns and after the range attendant walked off he must have remembered and came back asking one of us for a licence, but this I fear was more for the guaranteed return of the weapons than for the screening of age. The attendant asked if I had shot a gun before, I am not sure if it was because I was a female (the only one there) or it was my sheet-white face that prompted him to ask, no was the answer and he gave me a demonstration then left is to it. I couldn’t bring myself to load the gun the image of my face all pulpy with a gaping raw hole through it kept flashing in my head, what if I did it wrong? I left it to navy boy he handled assault weapons as if he had gushed out the womb guns blazing this disturbed and comforted me, yet in fairness to him he was very safety orientated and sensible except when he suggested I practice shooting with my left hand in case I injured my right, “you must know how to defend yourself with both arms in case you get shot” he told me, my view of him as sane was crumbling like the Berlin wall.
I shot the Glock, my hand would not hold steady, the gun kicked and I shot the beam on the roof, holy shit. My English mate shot the piece of metal that held the targets. I was fraught with the thought of ricocheting bullets as empty cartridges were hitting my body and the constant sound of close gunfire was reverberating in my eyes. I shot the berretta and even managed to get inside the bullseye three times, but it all felt inane I could not bring myself to finish my ammunition nor could I shoot the M16 instead I sat down and watched two middle-aged men whoop and holler as they shot some sort of semi automatic rifle. I felt dirty; it was guilt-by-proxy. I saw a sign on the way out taped to the window of the range booth it summed it up well, it read: “As seen on bumper sticker: It’s God’s responsibility to forgive Bin Laden. It’s our responsibility to arrange the meeting *United States Marine Corps*”. My sick fetish was just that sick.
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