At the firing range

So one of my good good ole boys--let's call him 'El Otro Beta' in order to preserve his anonymity and not to confuse anyone with the Slurry one--so, anyways, el Otro went to the firing range today. Why in god's name he was at said firing range is beyond the scope of this hear post. What I am hear to blog about is what he saw at the firing range. In order to best tell this story, I am going to recreate our phone conversation to the best of my recollection. Here goes...







"Hey man, wanna meet for a beer this afternoon."







Otro: "Maybe later man, I am on my way to the firing range."







"You mean, like to shoot a gun?"







"Yeah."







"Oh." Stunned silence. "Well call me later."





:::LATER ON:::





(The Domestique's phone rings unanswered. He's taking a leak or eating a snack or something.)





:::10 MINS LATER:::







"Hey, Otro, sorry I missed your call. How'd the gun shooting go? Kill anyone?"







Chuckles, sighs downheartedly. "Nah, man, not this time."









"So what is it like there, at the firing range. What kind of gun do you shoot? Do you rent it? And how many shots do you get?" I was on a roll.





"Well, you rent the gun. The whole thing cost me like $50, I guess, once you count ammo and whatnot," he says.


"Uh-huh. And??"







"And I guess I shot like... lemme see, 50... no 100, no no. It was something like 200 shots. Yeah, thats right. 200. The gun was a Glock. It's a standard issue cop gun these days."






Me, curiously, "I see... So you just shot a gun 200 times. A cop gun. So, is it fun?"





"Yeah, man, it's pretty great."





"Well I imagine it would be. So what are you shooting at? People? Buck? Beer cans? Bulls eyes? What?"







"Well you buy these targets. They aren't people really, just black outlines. Like silhouettes of people, with bulls eyes on 'em. Just like on cop shows and the movies. And you can buy others too, the have Osama Bin Laden-"







I cut him off. "WHAT THE FUCK? YOU CAN SHOOT AT AND 'KILL' OSAMA BIN LADEN?"





He responds casually, "Yeah, dude, imagine the clientèle at this place. It's a friggin firing range."





Of course it is. I am an idiot. But now it makes me wonder. "Any hicks shootin' at minorities?" I joke, perhaps inappropriately, "or just Bin Laden?"






More chuckling. He continues, ignoring my joke, "Yeah, so like the picture has Osama standing there,-"






I interrupt again, "Is he armed? Or just standing there waving a white flag while you pump him full of iron?"





"These terrorists won't surrender man, that's why we gotta kill them at the firing range." He is finally playing along, I think, but then he gets back to describing the Osama target. "So he's standing there and you can shoot him in the head, in the heart, and there is a target over his balls, too."





"Woah, you can shoot Bin Laden in the dick!?!?" I ask rhetorically. Then pause. "Huh." Another pause. "That's kinda funny. At least they have a sense of humor about it all."





"Nah man, I think these guys were pretty serious."






Come to think of it, he's probably right. I keep thinking about this idea of shooting something other than a blank target, something personable like Bin Laden. So I ask if there were any ex-wives there taking aim at their ex-husband's privates, to which el Otro replies that it's mostly just people shootin' silhouettes and Osama Bin Laden. Shame.




I should note here that I am not a big second amendment guy or anything. And in fact I think all hand guns should be illegal and banned from personal use. Assualt weapons too. For some reason I think shotguns and rifles and hunting in general is mostly OK. But again, that is just beyond the scope of this here blog post. This here blog post was just to let all you know that should you ever take an interest in fighting terrorism here on the home front, you can take fifty clams out of the ATM and head on down to your local firing range and pump about 200 rounds into ole Osama's cock'n'balls. God Bless America.