Fate has a way of dealing an ironic hand, and it somehow seemed
more than a coincidence that the seventh class of the Hollister
Citizens Police Academy received a hands-on lesson in firearms
safety just two days after a 15-year-old southern California high
school freshman killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others in
a campus onslaught.
Fate has a way of dealing an ironic hand, and it somehow seemed more than a coincidence that the seventh class of the Hollister Citizens Police Academy received a hands-on lesson in firearms safety just two days after a 15-year-old southern California high school freshman killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others in a campus onslaught.
The message was abundantly, almost frighteningly, clear during the class’s two-hour stint Wednesday night on the Hollister Police Department’s firing range: These are not toys.
An aura of nervousness early in the evening soon turned into camaraderie punctuated with jokes, which flew around the control room behind the firing range almost as quickly as rounds from an automatic rifle. Still, not a single member of the class – or the officers – had anything less than complete respect for the weapons.
“We (police) come out to the range and have a lot of fun,” HPD range safety instructor Kelly Burbank said. “But if a police officer draws his weapon, there are two lives on the line. It’s a very serious thing.”
It has to be. The effect of the weapons demonstrated for the class – and those we got to fire – wasn’t sanitized by Hollywood. Even though our targets were paper caricatures and not real-life bad guys, it was immediately, overwhelmingly evident that gun-battle scenes depicted on television and in movies or in a “Duke Nukem” video game shootout can’t possibly convey the sense that in one’s hands is the potential for carnage.
The sense remains even when not holding the weapon. During a demonstration of the HPD’s firepower, the stentorian roar of a 12-gauge shotgun blast reverberating off the concrete walls of the firing range was enough to knock the uninitiated back two feet – and that’s with ear protection.
Watching range safety officer Dan Goodwin fire the MP-5 9-millimeter machine gun was different, but the resulting “Wow!” factor was the same.
Single and three-shot bursts from the weapon produced a sound not as loud as the shotgun. But when Goodwin put the MP-5 on automatic and emptied a 30-round magazine in about 2 1/2 seconds, it felt like we had front-row seats at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
The cautionary call “Eyes and ears!” preceded every round of fire by several seconds, giving students and officers enough time to don ear covers and shatterproof goggles. Every weapon in the arsenal was afforded the same protection, even those far less offensive to the ear, such as a “beanbag” round being fired from the shotgun.
The beanbags – formally known as “less-than-lethal” weapons because they’re designed to stop rather than kill a suspect – have a velocity so deceptively slow that one got the feeling that they could be caught – if one had the nerve to be on the receiving end of a Randy Johnson fast ball.
Most wouldn’t.
“I wouldn’t want to be down there with a catcher’s mitt,” Sgt. Andy Burgess said.
Besides, the flight of the beanbag rounds – in green shells for close distances, red for longer shots – only looks innocent.
“(Less-than-lethal) doesn’t mean it won’t kill you,” Burgess said. “It means it’s not meant to kill you.”
A one-ounce slug or a load of .00 buckshot fired from the shotgun is a whole different story. Standing about 10 feet behind Goodwin as he blasted several rounds of each, it was difficult to decide which was more intimidating – the eardrum-pounding noise, the three-inch flame from the chamber with each shot, the concussion echoing off the walls or the quarter-sized holes that the slug put through the center of the cardboard target, 75 feet away.
All I could think was “There’s no way I’m firing that thing!”
My classmates, and Capt. Bob Brooks, thought otherwise.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Brooks said to the class, gathered in the control booth. “How many want Dave to fire the shotgun?”
Despite their jocular urging – and a slight case of shriveled ego as several women in the class stepped up to the firing line with the shotgun – my self-preservation instinct prevailed. (Read: I was too chicken to shoot the damned thing.)
The Ruger 9-millimeter semiautomatic rifle was enough, thank you, for a guy who up until Wednesday had fired nothing more powerful than a .22 rifle. After “eyes and ears” and making sure the 15-round magazine was properly inserted (“Pointed end toward the front,” Goodwin kidded me), I hoisted the surprisingly light weapon, assumed something resembling the firing stance that Goodwin and Burbank had taught us and tried to put the front sight in the center of the ring sight and line up both with the center of the chest of the paper man 45 feet away.
Pow!
It was almost a letdown. The kick of the Ruger was scarcely more than that of my old .22. But it felt good – and, oddly, it felt right – and I hit the paper guy about three inches above and to the right of his heart. By the time the magazine was empty, he was yesterday’s news with several more holes in his chest and one in his left temple.
It wasn’t until later, at home, that I realized that a real gunman would’ve made toast out of me in about half a second.
A few minutes later, I got further comeuppance when Laura Nelson put all 15 rounds within about six inches of her bad guy’s heart.
“I got beat by a girl!” I whined.
Magda Abbass got some well-deserved applause when she finished her turn with the Ruger. She had never even touched a gun, let alone fired one, and she was a bit nervous about the prospect – even more so than I.
“I’ve been going back and forth with it all day,” she said. “‘You’re gonna do it, you’re not gonna do it.'”
With some encouragement from her husband, an Air Force veteran and a member of the previous Citizens Academy class, Magda came through with flying colors.
Later, we got an unexpected treat: The officers asked if those of us who hadn’t gone home in time to catch “West Wing” wanted a crack at the Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, which most HPD officers carry.
That – and a turn on the F.A.T.S. training simulator, whose ancient computer was sick – was what I’d really wanted. Never having fired a handgun before, it seemed prudent to do so at least once to justify my long-standing disdain for them.
The result was twofold. Although all weapons are violent by their nature, I learned that the word “violence” doesn’t necessarily have to follow the word “handgun” – even this week, when “handgun violence” has been in newspapers and on news broadcasts across America.
More importantly, I learned something about myself which may be the most important lesson of the Citizens Academy.
Going into Wednesday’s class, I’d wondered if my loathing for handguns might actually be a view through liberal-colored glasses, a cover for a deeper, baser desire for power. If so, would it come out while on the firing range? Would I be at Lock, Stock and Barrel on Thursday morning, ogling the Glocks and the Smith and Wessons?
No. I’m still absolutely certain that I will never own a firearm. But now, the reasoning isn’t cloaked in any gun-control debate.
I’ve felt the immense, seductive power of a handgun. I’ve watched highly trained police officers take the utmost care so that “safety first” is much more than a motto, and I’ve seen their hands shake – perhaps from the residual force of the weapons, perhaps from a natural uncertainty over the possibility of a mistake by a rookie shooter that could lead to disaster.
Disaster needs only one mistake. That’s more responsibility than I want.
