Sharps Shooter
Member
My wife and I will be celebrating our 35th Anniversary next month and a couple of days ago she told me what she’d like to do for it. She wants to drive over to Cody, Wyoming to visit the gun museums and attend the big gun show being held there at that time. I consider myself one lucky dude!
My wife hasn’t always been like she is now about guns. Unlike myself, who can’t even remember not being around guns and hunting, my wife was born into a gun phobic family and raised in Southern California. Shortly after we married I got leave from the service and brought my wife to Idaho to meet her new in-laws. Dad had just bought himself some kind of commemorative Model 94 Winchester 30-30, and he was anxious to see how it shot. So dad, my wife and I climbed in the pickup and drove up on Mud Hill to give it a try. My wife stood behind dad and me. Dad took the first shot then handed the gun to me and I took a shot. Being the sensitive guy I am, I then spoke over my shoulder and asked my wife if she wanted to try it. When she didn’t answer, I turned around to see what the problem was. She was standing there trembling, pale as a bed sheet, and her eyes were full of tears. It had just never occurred to me that anyone could be terrified of guns. And even though that little 30-30 was not exceptionally loud, my wife had never heard a real gunshot before that day. She has told me since that she thought something had gone wrong. She thought that “dangerous” thing dad and I were fooling around with had blown up. But it didn’t make sense to her because dad and I were acting like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Well, she’s changed. Now she has as many guns as I do, including her custom built Model 70, 7mm Remington Magnum. She loves hunting, especially mule deer, and she’s better with most handguns than I am. She was one of the top revolver shooters in the state with her Ruger 44 Magnum back when we were shooting IHMSA competition.
Although it was I who gently coaxed and coached her along (the day after the 30-30 incident I took her out with a .22 loaded with shorts and let her plunk holes in tin cans) I can’t take full credit for her change. It took her open-mindedness and her wanting to share things that were so much a part of my life to turn her into the gun-loving lady she is today. If it wasn’t for all of those things she would be like her mom and the mere presence of a gun would make her squeamish.
But she has changed. Like I said, 35 years ago I got me a keeper.
My wife hasn’t always been like she is now about guns. Unlike myself, who can’t even remember not being around guns and hunting, my wife was born into a gun phobic family and raised in Southern California. Shortly after we married I got leave from the service and brought my wife to Idaho to meet her new in-laws. Dad had just bought himself some kind of commemorative Model 94 Winchester 30-30, and he was anxious to see how it shot. So dad, my wife and I climbed in the pickup and drove up on Mud Hill to give it a try. My wife stood behind dad and me. Dad took the first shot then handed the gun to me and I took a shot. Being the sensitive guy I am, I then spoke over my shoulder and asked my wife if she wanted to try it. When she didn’t answer, I turned around to see what the problem was. She was standing there trembling, pale as a bed sheet, and her eyes were full of tears. It had just never occurred to me that anyone could be terrified of guns. And even though that little 30-30 was not exceptionally loud, my wife had never heard a real gunshot before that day. She has told me since that she thought something had gone wrong. She thought that “dangerous” thing dad and I were fooling around with had blown up. But it didn’t make sense to her because dad and I were acting like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Well, she’s changed. Now she has as many guns as I do, including her custom built Model 70, 7mm Remington Magnum. She loves hunting, especially mule deer, and she’s better with most handguns than I am. She was one of the top revolver shooters in the state with her Ruger 44 Magnum back when we were shooting IHMSA competition.
Although it was I who gently coaxed and coached her along (the day after the 30-30 incident I took her out with a .22 loaded with shorts and let her plunk holes in tin cans) I can’t take full credit for her change. It took her open-mindedness and her wanting to share things that were so much a part of my life to turn her into the gun-loving lady she is today. If it wasn’t for all of those things she would be like her mom and the mere presence of a gun would make her squeamish.
But she has changed. Like I said, 35 years ago I got me a keeper.
