200 Books

The year I was twelve there was a 357 magnum in the toe of my Christmas stocking.  It was far from the first gun in our house and certainly not the first I ever fired.  I still have it.  Like a fast car may be, it is a source of strength and courage.  I love to shoot it.  I am not so foolish as to imagine that I ever could use it effectively as a means of self-defense; years of association with macho-gun culture has given me a decidedly realistic perspective on how little we may do to stave off vicious attacks.  Hearing men posture about what they would have done and never hearing what they did do in a dangerous situation made me realize how humans can alter history in the retelling.  Still, despite being sure I’ll never use it for it’s ultimate purpose, I have a decided fondness for that wildly age-inappropriate gift.  I love the smell of burned gun-powder.  I love the movement of a weapon as it fires, kicking up and back.  I love the concentration and focus of gently pressing the trigger until the hammer releases and the controlled explosion cracks in my ears.  I love excelling and I’m a damn fine shot.

I was rather grown-up before I first realized that a pistol might not be a normal gift for a not-yet teenage girl.  Living in northern Idaho gives one a rather different sense of “normal”.  Normal was pistols open-carried even in church.  Normal was every member of the family “filling” a deer tag each year whether they ever actually hunted it themselves or not.  Normal was reloading ammunition at home because it was too expensive to buy.  Normal was a thirteen year old girl packing a loaded .357 while playing in the woods near her house.

Is it just me or was that not even remotely close to normal?

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