And with that, her fear of guns was gone.
“Okay, you carry the targets and the ammo,” he said. “I’ve got the rest.”
She picked up the paper targets and boxes of ammo and followed him.
Before they entered the range, he made sure she donned eye and ear protection, and then motioned for her to follow him inside.
He spoke to the range master, and then headed toward number four lane, where he placed the handguns on a small table and then the long guns. He raised his voice, so she could hear and said, “Put the ammo here and give me the targets.”
She put the ammo down and handed over the targets. He pushed a button, and a metal piece connected to a track in the ceiling sped the metal piece toward them, until it stopped right in front of him. He attached the paper target with the picture of a man pointing a gun at them. Then he pushed the button again, and it sped back to twenty yards where he stopped it.
He showed her how to shoot the shotgun, and then it was her turn. Placing it high against her right shoulder, she put her cheek next to the gun like he’d told her to and then lined up the target and squeezed the trigger. The gun pulled up as she shot, and her shot went wide up and to the right. “I missed him,” she said. “The gun jumped.”
“You jumped,” he said. “That’s typical with new shooters. They jump. It’s not the gun.”
“I don’t like this one,” she said, rubbing her shoulder. “It’s too much.”
He eyed her small shoulders and nodded. “You don’t have to shoot that one, if you don’t want to. Or you can finish out the bullets. Then we’ll move on to the next one.”
“I don’t want to shoot that one anymore,” she said. “It hurts me.”
“Okay, I’ll finish with it.” He reached for the gun, and she gladly gave it to him. She watched as he fired off the rest of the shots, each one making a bull’s-eye, all shots right through the hole the first shot had made.
“Wow,” she said. “Do you ever miss?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m not perfect. So, I do miss. But not with a shotgun and not at twenty yards. If I miss, this close, someone might die.”
She scrunched her nose. “This probably seems like nothing to you. Easy as child’s play.”
“It’s not nothing. I enjoy shooting. And I’m enjoying teaching you. Next up, the rifle.”
She eyed it. “Is that one going to hurt my shoulder too?”
“No, this one doesn’t have the recoil that shotguns have.”
“On to handguns,”Reed said. Which do you want to shoot first?”
“The revolver. It’s like those guns in the wild west.”
“It is. These are fun guns to shoot. First though, do you remember how to load it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Go ahead and load.”
She loaded six shots into the revolver, and then looked at him expectantly.
“Now, go ahead and shoot. Just like I showed you.”
“Okay.” She stepped up and aimed. Then she fired. This time this gun only jumped a little. She glanced at Reed.
“Hold on,” he said. She waited while he corrected her position just a little, moving her fingers. “Try to relax. You’ve got a death grip going on here. And remember to breathe. You’re stressing.”
“Yeah, a little.”
Reed pushedthe button and the metal thing holding the target came sliding back to him. He unclipped the paper, and then handed it to her so she could see her shots close up.
“Good job for your first time shooting,” Reed said, encouraging approval in his voice.
