Vic Socotra

21 July 2009

Going to Gilbert’s

(Gilbert’s Shooting Range Logo)

Time is growing short for this summer. I looked for the lunar disc that had shown so brightly forty years ago, the day that the Men in the Moon departed. I remember how brilliant it was that summer, when everything seemed open to possibility.

Good possibility, that is. I don’t know if it is the passing of years or painful experience that has raised my apprehension at the coming of change. Maybe it is the devil you know, and goodness knows there are demons enough these days, both real and imagined.

The Intern and I were headed down to Gilbert’s last Sunday to deal with some of them, and I do not know in which category they fall. There is a significant body of opinion on both sides of the matter, and the practical consequences of the philosophical dispute would be rendered apparent that afternoon.

If nothing else, we intended to exercise our rights, since we agree that failing to do so causes them to atrophy. In this case were were interested in the exercise of the Second Amendment, and the place we chose to do so is Gilbert’s range-cum-gun shop, located in one of those anonymous industrial parks just off I-95.

Traffic was a mess, even on the Lord’s Da, and I wondered, not for the first time, why anyone in their right mind would live here.

I was only mildly surprised to find when we arrived the place jammed with cars outside the end unit, which now sported a big sign announcing that it was the African American Food Bank of Springfield. There was a new mosque there, too, a few doors down that had replaced an auto-parts concern.

Industrial parks are places where all manner of rights can be exercised.

I had taken the boys to a similar range out in Fairfax when they were younger, hoping that they might avoid the consequences of some of the lessons I had learned. The Invisible Girlfriend agreed- anything that I thought was worthy of teaching the boys ought to be taught to her girl, and I cannot imagine anything more important than knowing how not to screw up a situation that could involve firearms.

I know. There were three times in my life that I had one of those epiphanies. I have safely thrown my share of lead downrange, but once, as a young and inexperienced black-powder shooter, I dropped a fully loaded and cocked replica Colt 1860 Army pistol on the ground at my feet. It landed with the barrel facing my ankle, but it could as easily gone off in a more northerly direction, to my great and possibly fatal, chagrin.

A year or so later, out in the once wild west, a pal had a .44 magnum pistol, the kind that Clint Eastwood carried in his Dirty Harry movies. He wanted to go blow things out and we had a grand time exploding bottles in an old gravel pit until we realized that there was a highway off in the distance that was actually quite within range of a stray round that might have missed the disintegrated pile of glass shards.

The last cautionary tale in the trilogy unfolded in Korea, a place well known for is production of paranoia and mass delusion. We had finished a watch string and were without a care in the world. We wound up back in the hooch after a fine night up in Itaewan, probably at Sam’s club, which billed itself as having“The best Country Music in Korea.”

We made it back to the post before curfew, and I was showing off the new 9mm Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic I had purchased through the Navy Exchange Catalog and dutifully delivered to my FPO address.

Technically, I was not supposed to have it in my custody, and it should have been checked into the Garrison Armory, but privately, I considered that any place the North Koreans were likely to float down upon was not one in which I wanted to be standing in a queue to draw a weapon.

That particular night was well lubricated, just like the crisp action of the new semi-automatic, and after cycling a magazine ful of rounds out onto my quilt, pointed the muzzle out the window to clear it, just in case.

It WAS loaded, of course, the last bullet still in the chamber, and thank God the window was open. After the short violent explosion, I spend an hour trying to weave what was left of the fibers back across the neat circle with a pin. It still left an ominous, if ragged hole.

So, the lessons I took away from all that was never, ever, mix alcohol with firearms, always be careful to hold them with the business end facing in the right direction, and assume that the pesky things are loaded until you have looked into the breech, and the gun has not left your hand since.

Considering the amount of trouble these things can get you in, it is not surprising that I locked them up securely when the kids were little. The consequences were too awful

Anyhow, the time came around when I took the trigger locks off the things and decided to teach the boys how they worked. A few years on from that, it was the very same 9mm the Intern held in her hands, having been raised gingerly from its resting place alongside Great Uncle Walter’s .32 hammerless Smith and Wesson.

She was curious about it. The spring tension of the slide, the way the safety mechanisms worked, and how the magazine clicked shut with such authority.

She was looking forward to learning more, and experiencing what it is like to have the machine buck fourteen times in your hand in rapid succession.

We parked the car near Gilberts, and as we walked up to the door, saw that something was out of order.

Sunday is normally a pretty good day to relax and do some practice, and it never occurred to me that it would not be open. A large red sign read “Closed.” Below it was the standard warning that no loaded weapons cold be brought on the property, except by law enforcement officials, and below that a note that the range was closed until the 25th, with no additional explanation.

Contextually, though, there was something more. Another hand-made notice taped to the glass door: “Ammunition shortage continues. One box per caliber per shooter per day. No exceptions.”

We decided to come back the next weekend, though I allowed as how I might call first to ensure they were open. But what was up about the shortage of ammo?

It turned out to be a subject worth checking out. Talk to you tomorrow.

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