Bullet Time

I was busy uploading the last of my summer photos when I came across a blog worthy picture. California represents a lot of firsts for me. In this case, I fired my gun this summer. My friend who's a federal agent, we'll refer to him as TS, took me to a firing range in Milpitas. He had just gotten a new Glock 23, and was itching to try out.



Some interesting things I noted at the gun range:

• No headshots. We bought various paper targets to shoot at, and one of them was a human silhouette. However, it was against the rules to aim and shoot for the head. I guess they didn't want civilians getting good at head shots since they're usually fatal shots.
• No double-tapping. Double tap is where you fire off two shots quickly. The theory is that the two shots will hit the same spot twice with fairly high accuracy compared with firing off two shots slowly. This technique is also useful in defeating certain types of body armour. Again, they frowned upon civilians from learning this technique.

These rules above however did not apply to law enforcement officers. Officers just had to prominently display their badges, and they could fire away without the staff yelling at them. I kind of find these rules a bit futile though, because there's really nothing stopping civilians from going out into the woods and practicing these various techniques.

Anyway, TS taught me proper shooting stances and grips, so that's a good basic skill to learn properly. After my first few shots, I was kind of surprised how far bullets drifted away from intended targets merely by small shifts in my grip. After firing off fifty rounds, I got my rhythm and breathing about right, and got my grouping much tighter and scored a few bulls-eyes.

There were three guys in the lane next to us who had rented out a magnum handgun. Even though we all had ear protection on, my goodness is that a loud gun. It also had some serious recoil. The guys looked like they had sore wrists after firing off the beast.

In either case, I'm pretty sure if I tried doing some Hollywood style running and shooting with two pistols, I'd hit nothing. Although, it'd be pretty awesome to watch.