Annie Oakley is Alive and Well

My wife and I went target shooting yesterday. She likes to shoot on occasion and has a couple of pistols of her own, a Smith & Wesson snubnose 38 and a Ruger Mark II in 22 caliber.

I like to shoot all of my rifles and handguns on a "rotational basis" so I can stay familiar with them all from time to time, and so yesterday, I opted to take a black powder 36 and my Walther PPK.

We set up plenty of water-filled plastic milk jugs, and plastic orange juice bottles. I always use plastic jugs so they can come back home with us and not litter the target areas like broken glass does. (I sure wish some of you guys out there wouldn't do that. Makes ALL of us look like slobs in the public eye}.

Anyway..........an hour or so later when the "carnage" was over, there were far more 22 holes in those jugs and bottles than anything else...............my wife OUTSHOT me!

My male ego wants to call it just an "off-day" for the old Bazookaman, but the truth is.....she's getting better everytime we go out, which is normal (practice makes perfect). I also feel good about that, just knowing that if I were out of the house when an intruder broke in, HE'D be the one in a bad situation!

She'd shot a few times in her life before we met a few years ago, but not as much as she does now, and I've been working with her on the finer points of proper shooting. Women listen well when they're handling firearms, in fact, they listen much better than MEN who have rarely or never shot before.

Ladies in today's society aren't expected to know anything about guns. Most are afraid of guns at first and don't want to get hurt, so they'll LISTEN to instruction. Guys on the other hand, have this "macho" image to maintain, and even if they've never shot a pistol before, they've watched enough Clint Eastwood movies to interupt your instruction, saying "Oh yeah, I know how to do that."

No he doesn't. He saw Charles Bronson do it a few times, and one male CAN'T let another one know he's a rookie at what is supposed to be a "man's sport." I don't give shooting lessons as a rule, but on those rare occasions over the years when I have, I've always preferred teaching women..................until one of them starts shooting BETTER than me!

So, a word to the wise..........if you ever get the urge to break into the Bazookaman's domain, better make darned sure NEITHER ONE of us are there, 'cause my better half can "put 'em where they need to be"!