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The modern day archer.

I pulled. The gun jumped to life in my hands with a roaring explosion. It sent a jolt up through my arms. I felt the concussion in my chest. The shell shot up in the air and bounced away off the cement, blending into the rest of the casings. A dot appeared on the target. I raised the gun and fired again.

Shooting is not really about machismo, I think. It's meditative. There is a level of comfort you have to achieve with the weapon. It takes focus. I thought about it as I pushed bullets into the magazine. It takes confidence. I loaded the magazine into the pistol. You look past the gun. I armed it. Past the iron sights and through the target. I raised the pistol up. Precision. I took a breath and shifted my weight forward. You let the gun extend your arm.

I pulled the trigger.

My father and my uncle always have the best conversations. They make fun of their age, weight, and skills in regards to pretty much everything. "You want us to put up targets for you guys?" My uncle asked. My father looked at him sideways. "There's no need. We're just shooting through the same bull's eyes." My uncle tacked up the targets and got back behind the table.

"Alright, fuck this!" He said. He pulled a shotgun out of the case and loaded it up. He pumped it and blasted the target. Target stand, I guess. He emptied out the gun and blew the target stand completely apart. "Alright!" My father said. "Now you can finally hit the target!" "Smartass." My uncle replied. "Hey, you want to shoot this thing?" I leaned back on the railing. "No, I have a little too much self-respect for that." I said. "Come degrade yourself a little bit." So I shot at paper printouts of Saddam with a shotgun from five yards away. It was pretty glorious.

Pistols are fun, but they've never been my preference. Rifles are much calmer. There is a sense of dignity in them. A sense of nobility.

Also, my rifle has a bayonet on it. It's pretty cool.

We shot rifles for a few hours, which is something I love doing. Maintaining accuracy at 100 yards takes skill. It takes concentration. It takes patience. I loaded my rifle. The leftover bullets rolled across the table. I drew in tightly, pressing the gun to my shoulder. My shoes scraped the empty brass on the floor. I drew a bead on the silhouette target we had posted up.

"Shoot 'em up, shoot 'em up, pow pow!"

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