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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (May 10, 2012)
EW’s Outdoors Issue 2012 Happiness is a Warm Gun? Shooting outside city limits By Andy Valentine Photos by Trask Bedortha W here I’m from there’s a dearth of fi rearms. Hell, I grew up watching bobbies hit the beat with a billy club and a goofy hat — no pistols at their hips and certainly a lot fewer reasons to utilize bullets, considering the United Kingdom’s nationwide ban on pistols and other concealable hand-cannons. But in the rural U.S., fi rearms and the great American outdoors go together like Rupert Murdoch and phone hacking. Wanting to swim in the murky waters of this generally maligned American pastime, I began hunting for the man or woman who could help me learn more about just how enjoyable target shooting can be. I was surprised to fi nd that, for a person who has about as much experience with shooting guns as Ghandi, tracking down a few lead catapults wasn’t all that hard. The two fellas I contacted (who would like to remain nameless — let’s call them Heckler and Koch) were all for lending me their guns and ammo so I too could experience the Second Amendment fi rsthand. I had no idea the shooting laws in this country — especially here in Oregon — were so liberal. You can literally drive out beyond city limits with a borrowed gun and start fi ring at dusty old beer cans and miscellaneous targets. Just don’t bust caps too close to the road or near a house or barn unless you want to pay damages on a pissed- off dude’s truck, or if you particularly enjoy being labeled as a complete fucking imbecile — because that’s what you’ll be. That said, there’s a lot of things that fl y out in the bush, and I don’t just mean bullets. Tannerite targets, for instance, are completely legal and explode like the Challenger Space Shuttle if you add enough powder. First concocted locally by Daniel J. Tanner of Pleasant Hill, Tannerite is a mercurial mix of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder that really takes to hot bullets. Like, if you shoot at this stuff from too close a range it could blow your dumb ass up. Heckler and Koch had no qualms with using Tannerite — although I’ll admit I was a little disturbed at how bright their eyes were when they began mixing the chemicals out of my trunk. WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM Cackling as they loaded rifl es, handguns and clay pigeon launchers, my guides embodied just how much the liberation of fi rearms beyond city limits means to some people. Given that they are both hard-working professionals with clean criminal records and with families, Heckler and Koch seemed to fi nd nothing but pure catharsis in the bang of a barrel and the chance to escape. Understand: it’s not just about the shooting — it’s the getting out of town and respect this morally questionable device that (like it or not) has punctuated human history for almost 650 years? That’s something no videogame ever taught me. In hindsight, sitting on my ass with a controller is fundamentally not as awesome, or healthy, as getting out into the wild and blowing through a box of bullets. And a great deal of people feel the same way, apparently. There’s a much bigger following of this ritualistic bullet-wasting than I had previously thought. You can pretty much count on seeing other shooters out there — or at least hearing them. If they come near you, try to look congenial. As Heckler found out on our little expedition, looking at a guy while holding a loaded shotgun makes you seem about as disquieting as forced sex with a wood-chipper. “Get your fi nger off the trigger. Every gun is loaded. Even if you know it’s not, treat it like it is,” Koch kept telling me — a sure sign that, despite a demeanor of brazen nonchalance, this man also knew how to be safe around fi rearms. Educate yourself on gun safety before you go shooting unless you want something awful to happen — but that should just be common sense, right? So what does the Second Amendment in action look like to a foreigner? Part of me worries that a bullet is going to fl y 50 miles and hit me in the head while I’m eating lunch at Jiffy Market, but there’s another issue that’s hard to ignore: I started out wanting to hold an SKS assault rifl e and pop off round after round of power and fury, adrenaline coursing through my veins as my thirst for loud, smoky adventure was quenched. I ended up doing just that. And, with a childhood of thinking fi rearms were for irresponsible gun-freaks (and farmers) behind me, I had fun. All this tells us is that target shooting is like a drunken meathead at a bar: He’s loud, aggressive and intimidating on the outside, but in his heart there’s an innocuous, childish soul crying out for attention. I say give it to him. You could fi nd out he’s not as fi erce as he seems. ew The sound of a pop echoing through the valley is something that every American should hear once in his life blowing off steam in the wild. Without this hobby, I got the feeling these two would live their lives like caged panthers. The sound of a pop echoing through the valley is something that every American should hear once in his life (after all, this country was founded on gunfi re in the outdoors), and the smell of gun powder and empty casings is almost nostalgic of a time when we were young; mere boys pretending to play with guns and naively wishing that it could get just a little more realistic. Of course, as a child in England I was destined to while away the hours pretending that sticks were guns or that I was legitimately pulling a trigger instead of hitting the R2 button on my Playstation controller — just like some kids here. And if you think a piece of plastic vibrating when you shoot in a videogame is even remotely realistic, think again. I’ve never experienced anything like the anticipation that comes attached to fi ring a weapon for the fi rst time. What’s the recoil like on this thing? How loud is it? Why should I EUGENE WEEKLY MAY 10, 2012 17
