I was sitting in the classroom at Second Amendment Sports, listening to Don Busse tell me about all the dangerous game he had hunted. Lining the lower walls above the bench where Don sat were numerous photos of his trophies. Above us, there were numerous antlered things, wild boars, a coyote, and an alligator head.
I was so wrapped up in the stories he was telling me about his recent African hunting safari that I almost forgot why I was there. Then I heard two muffled shots, BUMF! BUMF!
Don stopped mid-sentence, looked me in the eye and said, “That’s the sound of freedom.”
Personally, I have very little experience with guns. Most of my combat training comes from the BB gun wars I was drafted into when I was a young man of Shafter. Despite this embattled past, I am a pretty non-violent kind of guy. However, listening to Don talk about calibers, scopes, ranges, and ammo types had me very excited to squeeze off some rounds.
All that was holding me back was the fact that Michael Plaza, our online editor, was still in class, and I needed him to bring a camera so that we could take pictures. Even though he had just come from class, he still looked like he was hungry for knowledge. Luckily for him, Don Busse was about to teach us a thing or two about freedom.
The mountain of paperwork we had to fill out got me all sentimental about skydiving because they also had a policy of requiring 30 sets of your initials before you can get a little crazy. I only hope that this whole paperwork thing isn’t a trend with all the activities we plan to do in this series.
Don hooked us up with a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a box of ammo, and some knowledge about shooting. He loaded up our target, which was a mock-silhouette of a person from the waist up, and set it at five meters. At the time, I was wanting more. I wanted to push it to the limit. 2nd Amendment has a 25 meter shooting range, so in my mind I was wondering why we were going to let 20 meters go to waste.
Don explained that most confrontations involving a handgun are going take place within 5 meters of your person. This made some sense to the practical Nick, but the wild jungle animal Nick still wanted to shoot a target that was far away.
However, shooting a Glock 9mm (the standard issue firearm for U.S. law enforcement) is a bit more involved than trying to give each other welts with spring loaded toy pistols. You need to have some guns to handle the Glock; it has a bit of a kick if you aren’t ready for it. Then, once you are ready for it, you have to remember not to try and compensate for the kick by pushing back against the gun. This will make your shot go into the crotchal region of the target, rather than the chest. Shooting someone in the crotch is never very sportsmanlike.
Michael is a much better shot than I am. He made sure that the target would never try to steal his wallet again. Once I started feeling more comfortable with the gun, and Michael was looking a little confident, Don showed us what shooting really was.
He unloaded four shots in a row into the same hole. He fired a series of two-shot bursts, going from the ready position to the firing position, each time landing his shots into the critical center chest kill zone. He made a vegetable out of the target by firing multiple holes into the tiny head-kill zone.
Don is one of five four-weapon masters in the world, mastering handguns, submachine guns, shotguns, and rifles. He was the top sniper at his command while he was in the Air Force, and retired after 22-years as a Master Sargeant. He has served in Vietnam, the Cold War, and the first Gulf War. He was taken hostage in Suriname during a military coup in 1981. Don teaches people how to defend themselves, lethally if need be. The guy hunts giant animals in Africa, for Pete’s sake. Despite all of this, he is engaging, enthusiastic, and funny. He can also lay down the law if someone needs some straightening out, or if he has to clarify some action.
After firing the holes into the paper’s head, he warned us that, “This is fun to play with, but try not to emphasize the head shots. It is automatically considered intended murder if you go straight for a head shot in a real-life situation.” Once again, it’s not very sportsmanlike to mess up your opponents modeling career with a shot to the face.
Even though the Glock was a blast to shoot, I was a little dissatisfied. Don told me that Second Amendment Sports owned an 80-acre tactical training outdoor firing range out near Lost Hills. The place does convoy training, a live-fire shoothouse (where you can do both home invasion training and infiltration training), long-distance scoped rifle training using steel targets, and it has a 1000 meter rifle range.
Second Amendment Sports is located at 2523 Mohawk St., at the corner of Mohawk St. and Rosedale Hwy. Walking inside is like getting a 100cc shot of testosterone. This is not because I consider having guns a badge of manliness. The badge of manliness comes from having guns, plus fishing and archery equipment.