January 28, 2009--Snowbirding: Texas Shooting Range & Emporium

After dinner at the Golden Pond, slipped under the windshield wiper blade, I found a glossy brochure from the Texas Shooting Range & Emporium. “Professionals Serving the Responsible,” it said. And on the cover flap:

PROFESSIONAL FIREARM
INSTRUCTIONS

Can You Defend Yourself
In A Life Threatening
Situation?

Enroll Now In Our Defensive
Firearms Classes to Get The
Necessary Skills and Knowledge
To Defend Yourself and Your
Family . . . While You Can.

The “while you can,” ominously set off in ellipses, really got to me, thinking we’re in Florida for the winter and the TV is full of lurid crime stories and . . . So I took the brochure home, hidden in my pocket so Rona wouldn’t see I had secreted it.

Early the next morning, while Rona was still sleeping, I retrieved it and read further.

First, they offer a Concealed Weapons Permit Course—for “novices,” defined as those who have “shot a handgun less than 4 times,” and do not “know how to safely load/unload semi-automatic pistols.” That will cost you $129.95. For those who are “experienced,” they aren’t specific about what that means, it costs just $79.95; but in either case, though “the course fee includes ammunition during training, not included are fingerprinting and photographs.” These, the brochures informs, “are needed to apply for your CWP Permit and are your responsibility.”

Florida is pretty permissive when it comes to carrying concealed weapons, but since I’m only a Snowbird, the CWP course didn’t seem right for me. Though that “While you can” was still rattling around in my consciousness.

Thus I looked to see what else they offered. For $450 they have Defensive Pistol, Level I, with a curriculum that teaches “defensive mindset, combat triad [?], fundamentals of defensive shooting, dry fire vs. live fire, sighted vs. instinctive firing, cover and concealment, and weapons retention and drawing techniques.”

For graduates of the Level 1 course, there’s Level II, where you get to do “multiple target and threat assessment, rapid fire engagement, shoot/don’t shoot scenarios, and close quarters combat technique.”

And for those nighttime situations, you can take a one-day Low Light Pistol course, for “only $300,” which instructs you in “low light equipment selection, flashlight techniques and light discipline, accuracy drills, and shooting on the move.”

I thought, while there is still time, if I want to get myself prepared for all eventualities, I should probably sneak off for a day, telling Rona who knows what, and take Level I; and if I did well with that, maybe come back for the Low Light course since most of the things I’d probably have to get prepared to defend myself from would be covered in those two.

But then I caught myself—Why am I having these thoughts and contemplating these plans? I’m a liberal. I don’t even believe the Fourth Amendment is appropriate for the 21st Century. I’m against people having handguns. I live in New York City after all. Downtown. No one there has a gun. We don’t worry about close quarters combat techniques. The only close quarters we ever think about is finding a place in the subway during rush hour.

But something bigger than all of this was pulling on me. Something I couldn’t quite understand. Was it situational, being here in an environment where guns are so casually available? Was I feeling more vulnerable as I grew older? Was it something unleashed from my hunter-gatherer DNA?

One thing I did know—I had better fess up to Rona if wanted to follow through. What was I going to do—tell her I was going out for a haircut and come home eight hours later all dressed in camouflage and toting a Glock 26?

To be continued in a week or two . . .