How I Turned the Wife Around

[BBroadside]

Here's the story in chronological order:

2006 - We meet. She isn't quite anti-gun, but she says she is nervous around handguns. I figure it is because of overexposure to killers on TV, and decide I won't press the matter. (At this point I owned no handguns.)

2007 - By now I have mentioned I have woven references to guns in only a few conversations. It feels natural, and it doesn't seem to make her nervous. Also I mention that I'd like to get back into shooting (I dropped the hobby for a few years due to distraction and lack of disposable $$$).

2008 - We get married. I go shooting once while she's pinned down with work. She has no objection to living in a house filled with my (numerous) gun books and (very few) guns.

2009 - The disposable income situation starts looking decent and I mention a few gun-oriented gifts I want to give myself. She gets herself some toys too - sewing machine, etc.

2010 - I get myself Daphne. She's my vintage Enfield 38. My wife takes a surprising interest in the new revolver. We both check out the revolver's ergonomics and do some dry-firing. (Earlier today, we see a picture of a Ruger 10/22 someone is raffling off. She says, "Oh, that's the one you want for Appleseed!" I'm thinking, 'Whoa, she was paying attention!')

Today, I hear about a friend going "hunting clay pigeons" with his Ruger 22 pistol and some friends. (That means setting them up on the wall of a sand pit. I'd never thought of that. Some of the gents were shooting skeet and they leant us a few.) She says it would be fun to "tag along and watch the men-folk shoot".

... At that point I knew I had her. I could just tell she'd be itching to try it herself.

Those clever little pigeons are very hard to hit. The will to live in a clay disc is tremendous, plus the blaze orange is pretty hard to pick out on gray sand from 20 yards. But seriously, the range was a little ambitious for shooting the handgun for the first time, non-standard ammo, fixed sites. We both got one pigeon, she on her first cylinder, me on my third. (She didn't even point at me and laugh!) She also tried the Ruger, which bit her on the hand once.

We had a blast. She enjoyed it more, probably because I was self-conscious about the boys thinking (correctly) that I am city dude used to firing Glocks and S&Ws at indoor ranges, and that I'm way out of practice. The boys deserve some credit for turning her around - none of them was drunk or obnoxious.

Next step will be to go back out with Hanka (my CZ 22 rifle, with a scope) and show her how easy rifle shooting is.

So there you have it. I'm into shooting, she's into making quilts, baking cookies, and shooting.

 

[the foot]

Good work so far Broadside. Try her out with a rifle buy.

 

[Starcheck55]

this is the part of the thread where you post pictures of her friends

 

[BBroadside]

She told me I left the most important part of her early interest - me showing her funny pictures on gun message boards. There was a video a while back of a bunch of people being victimized by some sort of elephant gun ... someone let some novices try out a rifle in .458 Win Mag or something, offhand. We felt pretty guilty for laughing so hard. Also there was the picture of over-accessoried AR-15 a while back (very photoshop!) - it had about a dozen scopes, flashlights, lasers, bayonets, bipods, and a pocket knife (open) on its forend.

That kind of thing makes the whole subject less intimidating, since I don't own an elephant gun!

 

[AZ_Rebel]

You had me going until you named your Enfield "Daphne"

 

[Driftertank]

My girlfriend, I have known since highschool, and we dated off and on for several years. Her mom used to keep a baseball bat behind the front door, but they didn't like guns. Back then, the only gun I had was a Ruger 10/22. Taught her to shoot with that. She was nervous at first, but it was an unintimidating gun. She got the hang of it quickly.

I'll skip the long boring bits and skip to last Wednesday. I had the day off work, and wanted to go try some ammo I'd got for my PTR-91. She tried it, but felt it was a bit big and heavy (she's 5'3"). So, while I set about running rounds through the PTR, she walks back to the car, grabs my Rem 870 Security and a box of shells, loads up and goes to town. Then she pulls out the SKS, confirms with me that she's using the right ammo for it, loads up and has at it. Tells me she likes the SKS, I tell her "Good, cuz now that I have my PTR, I think you should practice with that one more. It'll be your rifle." She was tickled. Put a few rounds through the .38 snubbie I gave her last year, then we packed it in, since it was starting to rain. She was disappointed that we didn't put any rounds through my .45, though. Went home and we cleaned up all the guns together. She told her mom I'd said the SKS was her rifle now, and got rolled eyes and an annoyed grunt in reply.

I love that girl to death...

 

[BBroadside]

My plan is to give all my guns girls' names, and match the name to the country the gun is from. So if I get a Russian gun it will be Svetlana or something.

 

[wsfarrell]

You probably could have turned her around in half the time if you referred to her as "my wife" rather than "the wife."

 

[Starcheck55]

still waiting on photos

 

[Domineaux]

Awesome successes! I am still working on mine. She found it a bit fun to shoot a friends Browning Hi Power and 1911 years ago but absolutely will not try rifle or shotgun since a malicious (read horrible @$$) had her try a scoped 30.06 at 7yrs old with zero instruction other than look through and pull trigger (after calling over her brother to "watch this" and laugh).


Gotta agree on:

You probably could have turned her around in half the time if you referred to her as "my wife" rather than "the wife."