Liberal CCW Story: Part 3 "Concealed Carry Ha-Weapon"

Saturday, 11:00 AM, my wife and I darkened the door of the local indoor shooting range, two of the ten US citizens signed up to take the concealed carry class. On the way in we saw a familiar face: A member of our local church, a guy a few years younger than me. My preconceived notions were confirmed at first by the appearance of my fellow classmates. My wife and one woman in her early 40's the only women. One African American, one biker, two young white male friends, our church friend, and a handicapped gentleman with a walker, capped off by the ubiquitous skinny old man in a ball cap. Our instructor was a tanned man in his 40's with a cop mustache and cop arms. I will call him Bruce. He wore a black T-shirt embossed with the logo of the indoor range. Bruce carried a menacing looking pistol on his hip. The classroom was upstairs, directly above the firing line. In the classroom I examined the floor, stomped a few times to prove to myself that it was concrete. The muffled bangs of gunshots from below were about as loud as a car door slamming one row over in the parking lot. Occasionally an especially loud report could also be felt in the soles of the feet. Now I was effectively in the attic and loose round from the gun nuts below could slam into the bottom of the concrete floor, literally inches under my feet. I nervously looked for expansion joints or gaps in the concrete and found none. We sat next to our church buddy in the back row. Bruce announced that he was the head of the Swat Team for a neighboring county, fire arms instructor and gun aficionado. He was extremely likeable. He opened by stating that all safety rules that would be strictly enforced. This calmed me, as I had felt unease in my belly like an amishman would using the phone in Fredrick's of Hollywood. Bruce stated that a firearm is always loaded, and was not to be pointed at anything you didn't want to destroy. I noticed that Bruce mispronounced the word weapon. The irony struck me, a man that earns a living for himself and his family, teaching and wielding ha-weapons. I stifled a giggle. He said ha-weapon about 2000 more times in the next 8 minutes. I tried to count how many times he mispronounced it and gave up. Imagine a man that cannot pronounce the term for the tool of his trade, and his hobby. Ok, George W. Bush cannot say nuclear, so I immediately filed Bruce right next to G.W. into my Dolt File. G.W. and Bruce will make good company in that space in my brain, trading hunting and chainsaw stories with their cowboy booted feet up on the coffee table, drinking Budweiser and choking on pretzels.