I’ve spent the weekend in South Dakota attending to some family matters, and have been offline. I will have more serious observations when I return home tonight, but for the moment, here is a rare 2nd Amendment post.
Based on both data and personal experience, I think that a well-armed citizenry is a good thing. The town where I grew up is notably peaceful, in part, I think, because virtually every home contains shotguns, and the inhabitants know how to use them. Until yesterday, however, I hadn’t ever in my life fired a handgun.
So my brothers and I took a break, drove to a nearby meadow, and did some target practice. We set up a target on a wood pile and used my older brother’s Sig Sauer Mosquito, a .22 caliber pistol that is no doubt the least powerful firearm in my brother’s arsenal.
We did pretty well, hitting the target 12 out of 13 times. Still, at the range at which a .22 is accurate, we speculated as to whether the gun or the hammer we used to put up the target was the more effective weapon. Here, one of my brothers takes aim:
It was fun. We may have to look into doing a little more shooting after we return home, although I doubt whether an urban firing range would be as much fun as a woodpile in a meadow.
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