Fred Fuller
Moderator Emeritus
Shotgun Help, She Wrote...
Some days are just not going to work out for the best no matter what.
Here I am 60 miles from home in closest Big Metro, NC (Fayettenam as the oldtimers know it, Fatalville to a newer generation) running errands, about time to head home, about time for lots of businesses to close doors for the day. One more errand- an older model 12 gauge 870 Express on layaway that needed to be picked up and brought home. Another Cinderella gun, as if I needed one.
News flash- the days of the sub- $200 used 870- even Express guns- are limited. Hear ye, hear ye- get 'em while you still can, inflation draweth nigh. This one was $214 out the door, best deal available. For an old Express (pre- magazine tube dimples, pre- plastic trigger plate, pre- lawyerproof safety) it was still worth it to me. The gun was like new inside and out.
It was picking up that 870 that brought me to my favorite FFL, but it was another customer there who made me heartsick. A nice young lady, a GI bride whose hubby was off in some 'stan somewhere doing Uncle's bidding. A child of Texas, bless her and all her kin in that regard, and she had some spunk, she did.
I arrived a bit late to the game. When I got there she was holding a Mossberg 20 gauge pumpgun at port arms, and she had a barrage of questions flying at the counter help- who were happy to abandon her to me as soon as I showed an iota of interest. To their credit, it was a busy night in the store, and I have been known to attempt helpfulness before on the other side of the counter. Sometimes it even helps with a sale...
So the poor thing was abandoned to my tender mercies.
Her house had been broken into. She was worried. NOT scared. Worried. She had called her brother in Texas with gun questions. Brother in Texas had told her what to go get, apparently in complete detail save for the serial number of the specific shotgun she was supposed to find. She had found one meeting that description in my friend's establishment and she wasn't letting it go. And I wasn't about to argue over it.
She wasn't exactly sure what to do with it, but she wasn't putting it down.
So we spent a few minutes talking about shotguns. Slowly. Quietly. Calmly. Stance. Mount. Gun fit. Shoulder pocket. Safety and safe storage. Administrative stuff (no one had showed her the action release button yet). Running the gun. Recoil. Shot sizes. Loads. Patterns. Terminal effectiveness. What "gauge" means. I looked the gun over and in the process removed the magazine plug for her, explaining why it was there and assuring her there was no magazine limit for burglars, just for migratory birds. She actually laughed at that- probably because she was tense.
We talked about places to shoot locally. There are some options available to her, including the range on Ft. Bragg to which she has access as a military spouse. I did not want to be too forward, too overbearing. I gave her what contact information I could regarding her options, and left her to make up her own mind about how to proceed.
And we talked about some things non-shotgun but related to defensive use of same. Good locks on external doors, used ALWAYS. Window locks too. Dogs (she had one already, a pet not a protector, but a mobile alarm nevertheless). The bed as bunker (brother had told her that one already, she liked hearing it again). Keeping the cell phone charger at the bedside with the phone always in place there at bedtime. Keeping the saferoom dark and making sure there was backlight at the doorway with a nightlight etc.
For all she knew she was going to have to take that Mossberg home and use it that very night. It was an awful lot to confront in one short sitting.
I wish my wife had been there. I told this young lady she'd have been much better off if she had run into my wife and not me, and gave her my wife's cell number, and mine as well (I gave her the URL here too while I was at it- she might eventually read this). She would have been much, much better off with Fran doing what I was trying to do.
I wish there had been a place she could have gone to get some hands-on instruction, to actually shoot that Mossberg before she took it home and put it to work. I wish she didn't have to do all that stuff at all- I wish bad things (and worse) didn't happen to nice young ladies who were at home alone minding their own business. I wish she didn't have to buy a shotgun and try to learn everything about how to use it in extremis in 15 minutes from total strangers in a gunstore. I wish... .
She did the paperwork, the FBI check went through without a hitch, and she gathered up her shotgun and headed home.
Some days in the real world are just not going to work out for the best no matter what. Of course, things could always get worse. I sure hope they didn't get worse for her last night, and I hope they never do.
When she wrote down our phone numbers, she put down our names too, and then she wrote beside them the words "Shotgun help."
I hope she calls Fran...
I hope she can get some REAL 'shotgun help,' and soon. Mostly I hope she never needs it- for that matter I hope NONE of us ever do. But the only thing worse than needing 'shotgun help,' is to need it and not have it available. And I don't mean just training, either.
Stay Safe, friends...
lpl/nc
Some days are just not going to work out for the best no matter what.
Here I am 60 miles from home in closest Big Metro, NC (Fayettenam as the oldtimers know it, Fatalville to a newer generation) running errands, about time to head home, about time for lots of businesses to close doors for the day. One more errand- an older model 12 gauge 870 Express on layaway that needed to be picked up and brought home. Another Cinderella gun, as if I needed one.
News flash- the days of the sub- $200 used 870- even Express guns- are limited. Hear ye, hear ye- get 'em while you still can, inflation draweth nigh. This one was $214 out the door, best deal available. For an old Express (pre- magazine tube dimples, pre- plastic trigger plate, pre- lawyerproof safety) it was still worth it to me. The gun was like new inside and out.
It was picking up that 870 that brought me to my favorite FFL, but it was another customer there who made me heartsick. A nice young lady, a GI bride whose hubby was off in some 'stan somewhere doing Uncle's bidding. A child of Texas, bless her and all her kin in that regard, and she had some spunk, she did.
I arrived a bit late to the game. When I got there she was holding a Mossberg 20 gauge pumpgun at port arms, and she had a barrage of questions flying at the counter help- who were happy to abandon her to me as soon as I showed an iota of interest. To their credit, it was a busy night in the store, and I have been known to attempt helpfulness before on the other side of the counter. Sometimes it even helps with a sale...
So the poor thing was abandoned to my tender mercies.
Her house had been broken into. She was worried. NOT scared. Worried. She had called her brother in Texas with gun questions. Brother in Texas had told her what to go get, apparently in complete detail save for the serial number of the specific shotgun she was supposed to find. She had found one meeting that description in my friend's establishment and she wasn't letting it go. And I wasn't about to argue over it.
She wasn't exactly sure what to do with it, but she wasn't putting it down.
So we spent a few minutes talking about shotguns. Slowly. Quietly. Calmly. Stance. Mount. Gun fit. Shoulder pocket. Safety and safe storage. Administrative stuff (no one had showed her the action release button yet). Running the gun. Recoil. Shot sizes. Loads. Patterns. Terminal effectiveness. What "gauge" means. I looked the gun over and in the process removed the magazine plug for her, explaining why it was there and assuring her there was no magazine limit for burglars, just for migratory birds. She actually laughed at that- probably because she was tense.
We talked about places to shoot locally. There are some options available to her, including the range on Ft. Bragg to which she has access as a military spouse. I did not want to be too forward, too overbearing. I gave her what contact information I could regarding her options, and left her to make up her own mind about how to proceed.
And we talked about some things non-shotgun but related to defensive use of same. Good locks on external doors, used ALWAYS. Window locks too. Dogs (she had one already, a pet not a protector, but a mobile alarm nevertheless). The bed as bunker (brother had told her that one already, she liked hearing it again). Keeping the cell phone charger at the bedside with the phone always in place there at bedtime. Keeping the saferoom dark and making sure there was backlight at the doorway with a nightlight etc.
For all she knew she was going to have to take that Mossberg home and use it that very night. It was an awful lot to confront in one short sitting.
I wish my wife had been there. I told this young lady she'd have been much better off if she had run into my wife and not me, and gave her my wife's cell number, and mine as well (I gave her the URL here too while I was at it- she might eventually read this). She would have been much, much better off with Fran doing what I was trying to do.
I wish there had been a place she could have gone to get some hands-on instruction, to actually shoot that Mossberg before she took it home and put it to work. I wish she didn't have to do all that stuff at all- I wish bad things (and worse) didn't happen to nice young ladies who were at home alone minding their own business. I wish she didn't have to buy a shotgun and try to learn everything about how to use it in extremis in 15 minutes from total strangers in a gunstore. I wish... .
She did the paperwork, the FBI check went through without a hitch, and she gathered up her shotgun and headed home.
Some days in the real world are just not going to work out for the best no matter what. Of course, things could always get worse. I sure hope they didn't get worse for her last night, and I hope they never do.
When she wrote down our phone numbers, she put down our names too, and then she wrote beside them the words "Shotgun help."
I hope she calls Fran...
I hope she can get some REAL 'shotgun help,' and soon. Mostly I hope she never needs it- for that matter I hope NONE of us ever do. But the only thing worse than needing 'shotgun help,' is to need it and not have it available. And I don't mean just training, either.
Stay Safe, friends...
lpl/nc
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