One Hundred .22's at 22 degrees

Over the past couple of years a few of the crew has been talking in passing about going and getting certified for a handgun carry permit. We spoke about it several times but never really followed through with it. Well last night myself, Cameron, Tara, and Teterman and his friend Jerry all loaded up and headed to Bend of the River. They offer handgun carry classes once a month. The course consisted of two nights. Last night we went through the written part of the class. We spoke about the in's and out's of carrying handguns and then we took the test. I figured the test would be the hardest part and once we got it over with we were golden. I was partial right. The test wasn't super hard, but it had its fair share of tricky questions. I hate true and false and that was the first 10 or so questions on the test. In typical Heady fashion cameron and i got tickled during part of the course and were nearly crying in the back trying to contain ourselves and not get thrown out. One thing is obvious. When the state is looking to cut back on the budget they wont' find much money in their video production area. The tape you watch during the class is pretty lame at best, and actually pretty comical. Some good info, but a high dollar film it is not.

Tonight was the 2nd and final night. I really thought we would walk out, pop a few rounds and be good to go. And in some ways that was true. The part of the equation we had not planned on was the weather. The range is outdoors so it was dark out. The shoot range has lights, but gives a different look than you are used to. The main problem that impacted everyone was the temperature. It was terribly cold. I'm sure time will stretch the tale to contain gale force winds and snow and wild bears. But in actuality it was just very cold. Camerons car registered 22 degrees when we got back in the car. The worst part is when we got there we had to wait on 3 groups in front of us. So we froze while waiting our turn. Tara retreated to the lodge fireplace briefly before her time to shoot.

The actual firing consisted of shooting at 3 different target lengths. At each length you were required to shoot with your dominant hand 6 rounds. These were fired one round at a time when the instructor blew his whistle. You then reloaded, which was very very hard to do quickly with numb fingers! You then fired 6 shots in a row left handed. Reloaded and fired 6 shots back with your dominate hand. This was done for each target length. At the end you counted up your 50 shots to see how many hit the target, then put up a new target and did it again. So you can see the process takes alittle time. We were the last group to go, and it was not a moment to soon!! Cold cold cold!!! In the end we all passed with flying colors. I believe at least one round each of us had a 50 for 50 ratio. Some of the hits were hard to count since they went through existing holes.

The only step remaining is to visit the DOT to hand over our money and fill out the forms for the permit. I was very proud of everyone for doing such a great job. It was alot of fun even if there were times of thinking "what have i gotten myself into". Am I going to walk around the grocery store carrying a pistol? Nope, but it is nice to know we can have a gun in the car on trips for protection and be perfectly legal.