armed and dangerous...

... but probably more dangerous to myself than anyone else. I have a handgun, the only thing of value in the house following the burgling last fall - they did not know about it, or it would have been taken  with the other two ancient handguns the piss-ants got. I thought I wanted one, and requested a couple of years ago. TP could not get to the pawn shop fast enough, meeting the guy who does the training for Columbus Police Department. Who gave advice and suggested the best one for him to purchase. Which he did, and I have had in the closet since, a bit un-nerved and fearful of that 'scary thing' I thought I wanted.

I signed up to go to a Firearms Safety class the Muscogee County Marshal's office teaches several times a year. The first meeting was tonight. I'd emailed the Captain who was the contact person asking if we were supposed to bring guns, and got a negative response. Wrong. Every other person in the class had their guns, except me. So I had to practice with the instructor's HK, so heavy I could barely hold it up with both hands.

Plus I got there about 35 minutes late, due to - can't believe this is happening in Columbus - traffic. I tried to go downtown on the north bypass, and traffic was completely stalled, for miles. I finally got to an exit, backtracked, and got down to the Government Center a good half-hour after they had started. Without my weapon. The guy who was teaching tonight is apparently the instructor for the Marshal's office, who said his name was 'Puddin'. Went through a series of power point slides about basic hand construction, then went around the room and talked each person through dismantling their particular weapon.

There will be another class tomorrow night. I know to leave home much earlier, to allow for traffic snarls. I have been surprised several times recently (often enough that it should not be surprising any more) by how bad traffic is getting out on our end of the county in the late afternoons. We've always been so 'rural' I've never thought of us as living in the city - but residential areas have built up so much out here, on the east end, there are hundreds and hundreds of people heading into and out of retail, commercial, business areas every day.

And Saturday, we will be going to the range to shoot. I am sort of anxious about this, but know that the only way to become more comfortable with this 'scary thing' is to handle it, use it, learn how to operate in  safe manner, be respectful, but practice, practice, practice. Which means buying more ammo. A friend recently showed me a handgun she bought that has a laser on it to help you be certain that you hit what you are aiming for - and that sounds like a good thing. If you are going to shoot it, you'd certainly want to have it hit whatever you were trying to make a hole in.