i attended the handgun basics training workshop hosted by the local chapter of the pink pistols today. the class was small, with just four of us students, and a wonderful instructor who reveiwed gun culture, weapon selection, safety, grip, aim, stance, and gun maintenance and cleaning. she really knew her stuff, and i took lots of notes and asked lots of questions.
we all brought our weapons, so we had the chance to view and handle a variety of different firearms. our instructor even brought her ak-47
and a wild looking .22 caliber target pistol that looked a lot like hans solo’s blaster
there’s a shoot next month on a day i happen to have taken off as a vacation day. i’m looking forward to some target practice, and i feel a lot more confident after this excellent refresher. there may be more of these types of classes, which i also look forward to attending.
edited to add:
here i am learning the weaver stance. i’m using a 357 revolver for practice, the weapon most recommended for beginners for its simplicity, reliability, safety, and ease of maintenance. click on the picture to get to our local pink pistols website - there’s a link to many more pictures of the event.
…..I’m suffering a terrible bout of gun-geekettery!
Han Solo’s blaster is a broomhandle Mauser with a flash-suppressory kind of thing on the barrel and a ’scope: save up your lunch money and you could make a working replica!
It is shaped like the drawing you posted, maybe a bit bigger. High-end .22 target pistols all have that ray-gun esthetic right out of the box, don’t they?
For the comfort of the hoplophobic, you might point out that unless your instructor has ponied up the $200 Federal tax (after passing a careful background screening), letter to local chief law enforcement officer, etc. (plus whatever State law applies), her “AK-47″ is *not* a military assualt rifle capable of fully-automatic fire (like a machine gun). Instead, it works just like a modern hunting rifle, one bullet per trigger press.
Uncle Sam has frowned on full-auto weapons in civilian hands since the 1930s, despite what folks may read elsewhere.
Most “AK-47s” in private hands in the US are not machine guns and cannot be made to operate that way without extensive, tricky and highly illegal modification.
…The civilian version is a very nice medium-powered rifle and highly reliable, even with very little maintenance. And it still has that Kalishnikov look.
Comment by Bobbi X — August 26, 2007 @ 4:35 am
I’m so glad you came tonight, you were truly the guest of honor! I had hoped a few more people would show up but everything turned out perfect in the space. We’re starting to evolve our little group culture into more activities than just the monthly shoot, and they can be scheduled for different days than Saturday so you can be there more often. Yay! By the way, the pics are up on the site if you want to see them…. and, I was looking for the link to those shirts but all I can find is this…..
http://www.pinkpistols.org/stuff.html
Weird! They must have got new ones… anyway, we are going to do our own fashion line soon so it’s up to you if you want to wait.
Comment by Mike Shipley — August 26, 2007 @ 4:42 am
By the way, I can’t help but obsess, I saw you linked to the main Pink Pistols site but you didn’t link to our own…. So now I’m forced to spam your comments with the link!
http://phoenixpinkpistols.org/
Comment by Mike Shipley — August 26, 2007 @ 4:51 am
actually mike, if you click on the pink gun, it goes to our site. but you’re right, i should have made the link more obvious.
and we definitely need some more fashionable gear - those polo shirts are cool, but the regular t-shirts on the site seem quite bland.
and the instructor’s ak-47 was single shot only, bobby, as you point out. i asked specifically if it were fully automatic (machine gun), but she assured me it was only semi automatic - one shot with each squeeze of the trigger. to me, they look somehow cheap - i’m not sure why. her’s was made in china, and is like the type pictured, with the fold-away stock. i noticed on some of the websites featuring ak-47’s that there’s many different types.
and the target pistol shown is only an approximation of the pistol she had - hers was customized to her hand, and i think she said it was a walther. but it looked somewhat like the one above. but yeah, the high end target pistols are very cool. even the high end airguns have that futuristic look.
all told, there were probably 10 or 15 weapons there, and only 5 people, so we each brought a few. i didn’t think to bring my 12 gauge shot gun or 22 rifle - i guess i was thinking “pistols”, so i only brought my 9mm and 22.
Comment by nexy — August 26, 2007 @ 11:36 am
Ooops, I see it now!
Sorry, I hate when people do that. Carry on as if I’d never spoken!! *blushing furiously*
Comment by Mike Shipley — August 26, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
that’s ok mike, we still love you
Comment by nexy — August 26, 2007 @ 2:18 pm
Hmm. All I can do is think… shouldn’t she be in a shooting gallery/range and not in an office? LOL~
Comment by Stacey — August 27, 2007 @ 12:57 pm
heh, we weren’t actually shooting, just learning and practicing stance and grip and stuff. we have actual target shooting practice at the range once a month.
Comment by nexy — August 27, 2007 @ 4:02 pm