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I lied through ommission
Sep. 17th, 2013 09:19 amAt home possibly nursing the beginning of a cold, but I was exhausted, around temperature variations, dog hair, cat hair, and cig smoke for a few days so it's hard to tell.
I drove to the country to see my mom after a not much sleep and tough gym week. I have to get to my dad's wife's (ex wife?) place to pick up belongings with pretty much no notice (well the notice I got was as if there was some prior communication I was neglecting - she probably thought about it but doesn't realize she didn't actually say anything, or she's being a flapping cunt again).
This is why I said I might be killed. I'm the first to say vs. deaths of people I know, while my friends understandably freak about the first from our group to die, of course they died and it's a shock more of us didn't. I could have been killed many times over by angry parents or jealous lovers and ex's. My temper and chosen actions could have killed me like others' reckless behavior finally killed them - the odds were not in favor of life. That's actually my point, though the timing of what I said was based on expecting to see two sides of my family in the course of a week. Fatalities have taken place on both sides and there is active turmoil on both sides - plus guns! Statistically, I was probably far more likely to die this week (and it isn't over yet) than many other in my life. My lack of judgement has resulted in a broken nose, a few beatings, and other potentially life-changing events...but my understanding is the combination of guns and family is far more likely to kill me than many of the other events. Still, while I very much hope to live as long again as I've been on this earth, and my lifestyle is 208% geared towards that plan, I am mortal and guns from family are about as likely to kill me as the prior reckless behavior. Well, statistically I may have been more likely to die on the highway there or back.
I think I actually nearly saw or was in a huge truck-off-the-highway accident, but while the timing there was amazing, it seems less like an interesting story than guns this week. The statistics might be curious though.
I shot guns and got the holy shit scared out of me.
Shooting guns bordered on boring, but I got competitive with the desire to not-suck. I couldn't win against the white-haired man who has shot on a farm since he was 10, but listening and learning I drew my groupings closer to the target center, then corrected trends, then grouped as much as I could for a neophyte with little practice or general knowledge. I also, completely randomly, got to fire some black-powder weapons. Lots of work in those few shots.
But.
We shot at targets set up on a downslope (shut up if you're about to give me an expert rant) on property covering dozens of acres. My vision is dying, and my grandfather's rifle wasn't and isn't any good, so while I can see the target ok (until the wind makes my eyes water) the sights up close are blurry. I spent a lot of time practicing aiming, not shooting each time if I didn't like how I felt (which sounds disciplined, but then makes my poor groupings even worse). I put in ear plugs even though I was shooting a 22 (but no goggles like an idiot) and vanished in trying to get my shot. After one shot I swear I saw something move. I looked up, and behind or nearly behind the bank of targets was...an Amish hat. A boy's hat. I couldn't tell at first - I wasn't sure if I saw something, then what it was...over the slope the top half of a boy with a cooler in one hand walked almost directly behind the targets from my view. I turned to the owner, who said there was a path the Amish kids took from school but they shouldn't be there at this time of day.
The boy never looked our way at all. You could hear the shots all over the area, and we could hear a chainsaw going at the neighbors place.
He said he was watching the entire area and the boy appeared long after my shot. He also noted the boy would have heard the shooting; he waved at the boy who didn't look or acknowledge us. I don't know if he told the truth or knew the truth. I know I want that to be the truth because then I am absolved from all blame in what in retrospect seems like a really fucking dangerous situation. Hell, a possible timing or aiming difference between what I could write-off as a chuckle or a life-changing, or ending, event. He says although it's a downslope, the drop on the 22 and the yards away the path is means the bullet wouldn't have reached him anyway, the "hat didn't appear" until long after my shot, and ... but for me the point is I didn't see him, I didn't not-shoot because I saw a human fucking head behind my styrofoam-banked target.
Now in my defense, I had been driven over the land the night before and it was ginormous, and while I knew there were other farms in the area I thought (correctly) they were all far away (I could see the neighbor's property with the chainsaw noise perpendicular to us). I didn't know there was a path there at all - that side was just woods and I heard there was a creek there but hadn't even seen that. And while I kick myself, I don't know if the hat appeared after my shot or how long after my shot - I was doing what I was told, and never saw outside the target area. The target area pretty much covered my view in the target sights (not a scope, but the antique lower sight blocks your view below your self-made-ridgeline). I wonder about the legal defense - lack of intent, invited onto land and in proximity of the owner, lack of knowledge of path...unclear fact pattern with regards to timing...vs. possibility of seeing path, possibility of seeing person, owner knowledge of path and regular use of path / tacit or direct permission over extended periods of time (it was a fucking path), positioning of target with respect to path...
When I facebooked that I shot a tomato and it went up just like a human head, it was funny and true, but it was way to fucking close to not funny. Granted most people will survive most shots with most 22s, and in no case will explode like headfruit.
I'm not an idiot - I'm not making a cause of this or having a large emotional reaction. I'm a whore and know a lot more attention whores, and know the giant drama I could play out of this situation. I think if I were 20 something I'd make this "one of my stories," whipping it out like THE RAPE without necessarily realizing I had tailored the thing to be the most dramatic and fit my point better. I have views on guns, mixed views which I like to talk about, and could totally bend this to make points for or against gun issues. I won't, most likely, as I know the tendency to pepper anecdotes into statistics to the detriment of public policy. I wonder if I'm smarter, more experienced, or just less chemically energized.
In all cases I'm alive and not facing charges at the moment.
I drove to the country to see my mom after a not much sleep and tough gym week. I have to get to my dad's wife's (ex wife?) place to pick up belongings with pretty much no notice (well the notice I got was as if there was some prior communication I was neglecting - she probably thought about it but doesn't realize she didn't actually say anything, or she's being a flapping cunt again).
This is why I said I might be killed. I'm the first to say vs. deaths of people I know, while my friends understandably freak about the first from our group to die, of course they died and it's a shock more of us didn't. I could have been killed many times over by angry parents or jealous lovers and ex's. My temper and chosen actions could have killed me like others' reckless behavior finally killed them - the odds were not in favor of life. That's actually my point, though the timing of what I said was based on expecting to see two sides of my family in the course of a week. Fatalities have taken place on both sides and there is active turmoil on both sides - plus guns! Statistically, I was probably far more likely to die this week (and it isn't over yet) than many other in my life. My lack of judgement has resulted in a broken nose, a few beatings, and other potentially life-changing events...but my understanding is the combination of guns and family is far more likely to kill me than many of the other events. Still, while I very much hope to live as long again as I've been on this earth, and my lifestyle is 208% geared towards that plan, I am mortal and guns from family are about as likely to kill me as the prior reckless behavior. Well, statistically I may have been more likely to die on the highway there or back.
I think I actually nearly saw or was in a huge truck-off-the-highway accident, but while the timing there was amazing, it seems less like an interesting story than guns this week. The statistics might be curious though.
I shot guns and got the holy shit scared out of me.
Shooting guns bordered on boring, but I got competitive with the desire to not-suck. I couldn't win against the white-haired man who has shot on a farm since he was 10, but listening and learning I drew my groupings closer to the target center, then corrected trends, then grouped as much as I could for a neophyte with little practice or general knowledge. I also, completely randomly, got to fire some black-powder weapons. Lots of work in those few shots.
But.
We shot at targets set up on a downslope (shut up if you're about to give me an expert rant) on property covering dozens of acres. My vision is dying, and my grandfather's rifle wasn't and isn't any good, so while I can see the target ok (until the wind makes my eyes water) the sights up close are blurry. I spent a lot of time practicing aiming, not shooting each time if I didn't like how I felt (which sounds disciplined, but then makes my poor groupings even worse). I put in ear plugs even though I was shooting a 22 (but no goggles like an idiot) and vanished in trying to get my shot. After one shot I swear I saw something move. I looked up, and behind or nearly behind the bank of targets was...an Amish hat. A boy's hat. I couldn't tell at first - I wasn't sure if I saw something, then what it was...over the slope the top half of a boy with a cooler in one hand walked almost directly behind the targets from my view. I turned to the owner, who said there was a path the Amish kids took from school but they shouldn't be there at this time of day.
The boy never looked our way at all. You could hear the shots all over the area, and we could hear a chainsaw going at the neighbors place.
He said he was watching the entire area and the boy appeared long after my shot. He also noted the boy would have heard the shooting; he waved at the boy who didn't look or acknowledge us. I don't know if he told the truth or knew the truth. I know I want that to be the truth because then I am absolved from all blame in what in retrospect seems like a really fucking dangerous situation. Hell, a possible timing or aiming difference between what I could write-off as a chuckle or a life-changing, or ending, event. He says although it's a downslope, the drop on the 22 and the yards away the path is means the bullet wouldn't have reached him anyway, the "hat didn't appear" until long after my shot, and ... but for me the point is I didn't see him, I didn't not-shoot because I saw a human fucking head behind my styrofoam-banked target.
Now in my defense, I had been driven over the land the night before and it was ginormous, and while I knew there were other farms in the area I thought (correctly) they were all far away (I could see the neighbor's property with the chainsaw noise perpendicular to us). I didn't know there was a path there at all - that side was just woods and I heard there was a creek there but hadn't even seen that. And while I kick myself, I don't know if the hat appeared after my shot or how long after my shot - I was doing what I was told, and never saw outside the target area. The target area pretty much covered my view in the target sights (not a scope, but the antique lower sight blocks your view below your self-made-ridgeline). I wonder about the legal defense - lack of intent, invited onto land and in proximity of the owner, lack of knowledge of path...unclear fact pattern with regards to timing...vs. possibility of seeing path, possibility of seeing person, owner knowledge of path and regular use of path / tacit or direct permission over extended periods of time (it was a fucking path), positioning of target with respect to path...
When I facebooked that I shot a tomato and it went up just like a human head, it was funny and true, but it was way to fucking close to not funny. Granted most people will survive most shots with most 22s, and in no case will explode like headfruit.
I'm not an idiot - I'm not making a cause of this or having a large emotional reaction. I'm a whore and know a lot more attention whores, and know the giant drama I could play out of this situation. I think if I were 20 something I'd make this "one of my stories," whipping it out like THE RAPE without necessarily realizing I had tailored the thing to be the most dramatic and fit my point better. I have views on guns, mixed views which I like to talk about, and could totally bend this to make points for or against gun issues. I won't, most likely, as I know the tendency to pepper anecdotes into statistics to the detriment of public policy. I wonder if I'm smarter, more experienced, or just less chemically energized.
In all cases I'm alive and not facing charges at the moment.
