Mark got up at 5:00 this morning and went to Los Banos, nearly a 2 hour drive, to take a day of training for certification as a Range Safety Officer. This isn’t a required training here, but he wanted to be prepared for this winter when it will just be him and Adam working on the range. He got home this evening at 7:45, full of stories about what he learned and the people he met there. There were two instructors and three students other than Mark. One of the instructors looked to Mark to be about 90 years old. He sounds like he was quite the character. During the day, Mark accidentally referred to guns as weapons. This is a carry-over from his 26 years in the military and law enforcement. He’s been told here that he can refer to them as guns or as firearms, but not as weapons. The old instructor told him the same thing. It’s all semantics as far as I’m concerned. Guns and firearms can be used as weapons. I haven’t changed my opinions about them.
Mark said he stopped on his way home to look at some .22’s, and the woman at the counter told him she had some semi-automatic .22’s as well. He said, “That won’t work. My wife is a pacifist!” He and I have had talks about this. I can see using a regular rifle for hunting to provide meat for your family. There is a woman at Reedwood Friends who does this. But I see no merit whatsoever in civilians owning anything semi-automatic or fully automatic. Mark tried arguing that it could help with hunting, and I said that it’s not sportsmanlike to shoot an animal with anything but a rifle or an arrow. You have to give the animal some chance. Besides, if you shot it with a bunch of bullets, how would you get any meat out of it? Nope, I haven’t changed just because I find I’m able to hit a bull’s eye.
As for guns and firearms as weapons, so can baseball bats, scissors, knitting needls, bowling balls, croquet mallets, pool cues and anything else you can get your hand on. Denise has been using a bolt action rifle, which was high tech for its time back in WWI. The only thing a semi auto has over bolt action, is that the single bullet is loaded for the shooter by the cyclic operation of the gun. Full auto not used properly is just a waste of ammo…..