CCW Story Part 27: My First Firearm.

Now, I was buying a piece of hardware to protect myself from something that I was not afraid of. The threshold stood before me, it was not too late to turn back. My wife and I walked into the store and Todd gave us his usual friendly greeting.

"I am here to pick up the Bersa". I told Todd.

He placed several sheets of paper before me, one a small white sheet with a legal waiver. It stated that I had been educated by the seller as to the safety features of the handgun and that I would not hold the seller responsible for injuries sustained to myself or others by the weapon. The second sheet, yellow in color, looked like a background check questionnaire. I started at the top, and filled in all of my personal info. A series of check boxes asked if I had ever been institutionalized, if I was a U.S. Citizen, if I had ever been convicted of a felony.

"Has anyone ever checked the "I have been convicted of a felony check box"? I asked Todd. "Yes, people have, they are disqualified immediately. One guy looked up from the paper at me and said, well, I have not been convicted yet, does that count? And besides, the bitch had it coming to her. Needless to say, we did not give him the gun. Another time a guy checked the box and said, yeah, I got convicted, does that automatically knock me out of it? When we said yes, he replied, well all I did was kick a cop once. We denied him too".

This made me feel better about the gun store. I also noticed that a restraining order was enough to nix the gun sale, also a warm fuzzy builder for me.

CCW Story: Part 26: My Fears.

Finally the day arrived and I went and picked up the Bersa. I hade never owned a gun, I had always gone about unarmed. Since high school I have run in the early mornings, before dawn, and never had a problem with people. I have never been bitten by a stray dog, although a Collie fell on me once with his mouth open.

Over the course of 15 years, I have ridden road bicycles untold thousands of miles through the rough parts of many major US cities, and never been messed with by criminals. Cops, yes, criminals, no. I have ridden mountain bikes for thousands of miles in the woods rumored to be frequented by perverts, and never been messed with by a pervert. Angry granola crunching hikers and redneck park rangers, yes. Perverts, no. Firearms literature warns that if we are unarmed, we are at risk from criminals and perverts. I was about to arm myself against threats that I had read about, but never seen. The only people I know who had died of gunshot wounds, had intentionally inflicted those wounds upon themselves. My only fears of being shot was of goofballs plinking in the woods, with me as their Lycra-clad backstop 400 yards away, or as the victim of a stray bullet in a urban shootout.

Thus, a firearms purchase was a major change in my life philosophy, a sacrifice for the sake of my seeking the truth about American gun culture. I have been able to legally purchase a firearm for 15 years, but the idea to walk into a store and buy a gun had never once occurred to me.

To be honest, I felt that if my time came, it would come, and I would be powerless to change my fate, no matter how well armed I was. I was never worried about armed assault, death at the hands of a criminal. When I was racing bicycles, my fear was drunk drivers, or somebody looking for CD’s on the floor of their car as the hurtled down the road at 60 MPH, their car drifting towards me across the road. I had lost friends this way.

I feared the aluminum fork crown of my road bike separating from the steel steering tube during a decent. I feared my heart stopping during a race, as I held it at above 180 beats per minute for hours at a time. I feared field sprints, and motor pacing through the team cars at 40+ MPH to catch back up to the peleton after a flat. I feared criteriums in the rain, to the point that I stopped racing criteriums in Belgium.

CCW Story: Part 25: The lefty liberal learns of lead spitting llamas

I had to wait until payday to get the Bersa. I found myself thinking about it a lot. Strange that I would be this excited about getting a gun. I surfed the internet and found a Bersa chat page, bersatalk.com where people discussed technical issues. I downloaded the owner's manual and read it from cover to cover, paying close attention to the lengthy safety sections.

While surfing for Bersa, I found that the same importer also carries the Llama line of handguns. Now there is a product name to inspire fear. I can hear the police debriefing now:

"The suspect pulled a gun and tried to shoot me, so I drew my Llama and double tapped him, he kept coming so I took him with a head shot". Yeah, that Llama .45 sure packs a punch".

I see in my mind an imaginary Llama handgun logo, an angry Llama spitting bullets. I wonder if the Llama line has taken off in the US? It seems like a silly name for a weapon to me, but if you think about it, is it any sillier than Colt? To the Argentinean makers of the Llama, I am sure it is just as cool a cultural reference.

CCW Story: Part 24: .50 Caliber Elephant Schlong

I decided to wait, having learned early on in my shooting career that such a situation usually turned into a good chuckle. Dude reached into his gun bag and started pulling out his precious. It was like a scene where one of the stooges pulls a lamppost out of a handbag, the gag staged on a floor with a hole cut in it. The barrel just kept coming out of the bag, like a chromed elephant schlong. I wondered if there was a hole in the floor and a prop man underneath feeding this humongous lethal chromed thing through to Dude.

Dude hefted his precious up in the air, a grotesque statement to his power as a consumer, and clicked the magazine into place. I took a few steps backwards as Dude lined up on the target at 15 yards. His first shot was well off of the ten ring, the rest of his shots were also weak. The .50 caliber magnum was only a bit louder than my wife's Kahr .40 a major disappointment, the sort you feel when you plunk down a dollar to see the bearded lady at the carnival, and when you go in, it's a old chipped mannequin head wearing a scraggly Santa Beard.

After all of the buildup, I expected an orgasmic fury of fire, spitting lead, the target ruined by Dude's Israeli built manhood. Instead I felt like I was watching Bob Dole trying to hit on the Vegas showgirls only to find that he forgot his little blue pills.

"Well that was interesting". My wife said, as I imagined dude, who wouldn't even have to shoot an assailant, as just looking down the barrel of his 'Eagle would be enough, that is if he could get the full length of it out of his bag in time.

CCW Story: Part 23: The Desert Eagle

The Desert Eagle, by the way is a very large and imposing pistol. Produced my Magnum Research in Israel, the models that I have seen were .44 magnum and .50 magnum chambered monsters. Todd at the gun shop keeps them in stock because they sell, although he laughs at the types that buy one. The sheer size and bulk prevent any reasonable chance using a Desert Eagle for concealed carry, and unless your vehicle is stretched sideways you aren't getting one into your glove box. Todd's favorite targets for jokes are the purchasers of nickel plated models, or the fabled Gold Plated Desert Eagle. I think I saw one of the gold plated ones in a rap video once, or perhaps it was a Steven Segal flick.