Calamity in America (29 page)

No one lives around me much and I shot all three of the guns in my back yard.  I did remember what the gun shop guy said and I had no problem loading and shooting each of the guns.  I did it so I would know how to use them if I ever needed to do so for my protection.  What I did not expect was that I would enjoy shooting those guns.  Especially that 22 rifle. 

All the guns were Winchester brand.  I guess maybe they had been in our family for awhile.  I never remember my father ever shooting them so maybe the guns belonged to his father, or even further back, to his father’s father. 

The shotgun said it was a Model 1912, the little 22 said it was a Model 63, and the deer rifle said it was a Model 1894.  The shotgun was a twelve gauge and it had plenty of recoil and was my least favorite gun to shoot.  It was also the longest and was rather clumsy even with my long arms.  It was pretty heavy too. 

The deer rifle was a twenty five thirty five caliber and it was rather light, short, handy, and had little recoil.  But the little 22 was my favorite.  I could shoot really fast with it if I wanted.  It had no recoil at all.

After shooting all the guns I went back to the same gun shop and bought more ammunition for each of them.  The same young man warned me that ammo for the deer rifle would be very hard to find and that he thought they might stop making it soon.  I bought all he had on the shelf. 

I told him I did not like the shotgun much because it kicked too much and he sold me some light recoil ammo for it.  He also sold me cleaning equipment for the guns and explained how to clean them and how often. 

But when it came to the twenty two ammunition I bought a lot of it.  It was also the cheapest one to buy which was great with me.  When I left the gun shop I had what I thought was plenty of ammunition for each of my three guns.  I was a happy girl.  I left the guns loaded in the house at all times.  It wasn’t like I had kids around to play with them and having them loaded made me feel safer. 

More and more people are losing their jobs and that is likely why crime is going up.  Even where I live there seems to be break-ins and home invasions all the time.  And rapes, or, as they say on the TV news, ‘sexual assaults’. 

At home I have my loaded guns scattered around the house and here at home or when I am away I always have at least one knife on me.  Always.  I will not be a victim.  Or, I should say, I will not be a victim without putting up a good fight.

With the big upsurge in crime and ‘sexual assaults’ there were a few free classes in town aimed at women to help us stay safe.  I went to each of the free classes and I listened to every word spoken.  In one class their answer to what to carry for protection was a stupid cell phone!  What on earth good would that do? 

When they had a free self defense class it was way more practical and it was all hands-on training.  It taught me how to get away.  The whole class was about ‘getting away’ from your attacker.  This was fine and I did learn many useful things, but running away is just not my style.  Oh, I would certainly run away if that was the best thing to do, and I am an excellent runner so likely I would not get caught, but if going on the attack seems to be a better choice, I will do that instead.

Sometimes at Walmart I have to work later shifts and would get off work in the nighttime hours.  The store started out open twenty-four hours a day, but the slowing economy and people having little money due to job loss caused a slow down in sales, which led to the store only being open eighteen hours per day now.  From six in the morning until midnight. 

I sometimes have to work until the store closes at midnight.  The parking lot is fairly well lit but the employees are required to park way away from the building, so it is always a long walk across the whole parking lot to get to my car at night when I get off work.

I always have a knife of course, even though I’m sure Walmart would have possibly fired me if they knew that I carried one.  I keep it hidden on my person and I have never told anyone I have it, and I never take it out and play with it or show it off at all.  So no one knows about my knife except me, and it makes me feel much safer having it on me. 

When I walk out to my car, even during the daylight, I always have my knife in my hand.  If I ever need it I want it ready.  That time I was dragged into the alley showed me just how fast something can happen without any kind of warning at all.  So my knife is in my hand on each walk out to my car.

Working at Walmart you see all kinds of people.  Many are nice people and some are just pre-occupied people and some are very likely bad people.  The number of bad people seems to be higher after dark.  Or maybe it just seems that way.

When I walk out to my car, if it is after dark, or even if it is still light out, I am always very watchful and careful.  I actually try to always be that way.  Crime is up so much that everyone is demanding more police presence, so what does the city do?  They cut the police force of course, citing the need for more and more budget cuts. 

It seems the city tax revenue is way down and at the same time the city expenses are way up.  So they slashed the police budget and the fire department budget, and those budget cuts resulted in many layoffs of both policemen and firemen.  Did I mention that arsons were way up also?  Idiots.

So when we need the police more than ever there are fewer of them to go around.  And the city said absolutely no overtime at all for any city workers.  So when I walk out to my car at night I never expect to see a cop car cruise through the lot.  Like always, I am on my own.

I am correct to be concerned, because two different times right here in this very Walmart parking lot people were assaulted and robbed.  And it is now common all across the city, not just here.  In the newspaper they said many people are arming themselves.  It made me consider getting a pistol to carry.  I do have my knife, but a pistol would obviously be better.  Of course, I would still carry the knife.

So, on a day off, I went back to the only gun shop I have ever been in and I talked to that same young guy about maybe getting a pistol for my personal protection.  He seemed to genuinely care about what would be best for me and seemed unconcerned whether I bought it from him or not.  He spent a considerable amount of time explaining the many different handguns he had on hand, and he almost forced me hold several of them. 

After I had handled maybe a dozen different handguns he asked if any felt more comfortable to me when I was holding them.  It seemed an odd question to me but he seemed to think it important. 

He said you would want to try on shoes so you could pick out the most comfortable wouldn’t you?  I said yes and he asked whether I thought the purchase of a protection handgun would be more important than the purchase of a pair of shoes?  I saw his point.  So I asked to handle a couple of the guns again and after I did I set one aside and told him, “This one just felt better to me than the others.”

He asked me what I liked about it and I said it was lighter than many of the handguns, it was small like what I was looking for, and it felt ‘right’ when I held it.  He said look at this.  And he reached behind his back and drew out a pistol from a holster I did not notice he was wearing.  He carefully laid his pistol next to the one I had picked out.  They looked identical.

“It was my choice, too.”

That was all he said, then he put his pistol back into his hidden holster.

We talked more and he said the pistol I picked was a used one and was several years old even though it looked like new.  He said it was older than me, just like the other guns I owned.  He must have remembered the ones I had brought in to show him quite some time ago.

I decided to go ahead and buy the pistol.  After all, I had a good feeling about it after having seen that the person I assumed to be the owner of the shop had picked the same one out of all the others he could have carried.

Along with the small pistol I needed ammunition and a holster.  I bought several boxes of the ammo because he said shooting a pistol was not as easy as shooting a rifle and requires practice fairly often.  He said something about using light bullets so there would be less recoil (he must have remembered that I did not like recoil) and made the recommendation of which ammo for me to buy.  I noticed it was far from being the most expensive in that particular caliber so again he seemed to have my interest at heart instead of just trying to make a bigger sale.

He took plenty of time to show me how to load and unload and shoot this new-to-me little gun.  He showed me how I could shoot it just by pulling the trigger, or I could pull the hammer back and then, when I pulled the trigger, it would take much less effort and likely I would be more accurate with it that way.  He suggested that I shoot it using both methods.  He was obviously well versed on this pistol, and likely all guns in general.  He talked to me like I was his equal and that this just happened to be a gun I was unfamiliar with.

When it came to holsters to carry my new pistol I expected him to tell me exactly which one to buy, but he did not.  He said everyone liked something different and some found one more comfortable than others, just like the many different guns.  So he took the time to show me many different ones and what each was best for.  He also said that if I already had a quality fanny pack that might work just fine for carrying the gun, even though he had some of the special fanny packs on the shelf he could have sold me instead.

I did buy one inexpensive hip holster and thought I would try using the leather fanny pack I sometimes wore.  I had bought it at a yard sale, of course, for only a dollar some time back.  As I was leaving, besides thanking me for the purchase, he also warned me to take care when I was handling the small gun because it was very easy to end up pointing the gun at yourself if you weren’t very careful because the handguns are so short and small, especially that little one I picked out. 

He said I was a good customer and he did not want anything to happen to me.  He also told me about the need to get a permit to carry the gun concealed and said classes were offered here at his shop every so often.  I told him I would think about it.  He does seem like a nice guy and I guess he is pretty good looking too.  But I hardly even noticed.

Chapter 3

OK. So I splurged by buying that handgun, but I had just gotten a promotion at work so I was making more money than I was before.  The promotion was not a big thing but I am a CSM now.  I still have not used any of that ten thousand dollars I have in the bank either.  Even after the big expenditure for the pistol, ammunition, and holster, I still have money in my checking account.  I am naturally a very frugal person but sometimes you just have to buy things that you need. 

I would never be able to make it on my own if I didn’t have that old trailer to live in.  If I had to pay rent I don’t think I could make a go of it.  Maybe if I lived close enough so I could sell the car and not have any of its expenses like license, gas, tires, and insurance. 

Everything I buy seems to be going up all the time.  Food is certainly going up.  Insurance is going up, both car insurance and my health insurance and the house insurance.  I have health insurance through work but the amount I pay still goes up every year.

I don’t carry my new pistol at work.  If I was caught with it I would be fired on the spot and I really doubt I could find another job.  At least I couldn’t find another full time job.  It seems many people now have to work two part-time jobs just to try and make ends meet.  Many businesses are cutting everyone’s hours so they are just down to part-time positions.  I guess it is a cost-cutting thing for those companies, but with the failing economy I suppose businesses don’t need as many people working full-time anymore.

I see in the local paper that the city is in some kind of big financial trouble due to the underfunding of their pension plan.  I don’t really understand it but it seems to be a big deal.  Apparently a judge just ordered them to meet their pension funding requirements.  And the city does not know where they will get the money to do so.  Personally I am more concerned about the funding to buy a new set of tires for my car.

I noticed that the city has removed all the city garbage cans that were in the city parks and those occasionally seen on the sidewalks.  They said it was another cost-cutting measure.  In the newspaper businesses were now complaining that residents were putting their garbage in the business dumpsters and filling them up which required the businesses to empty their dumpsters more which was a considerable added expense. 

Sometimes I run in the city and I did notice that many dumpsters now have shiny new padlocks on them.  It seemed strange to me that they would lock up their garbage but now I realize they did it to prevent others from dumping in those dumpsters.  What a world we live in.

When I run now I always wear my leather fanny pack with my new pistol in it.  There are always men everywhere on street corners and such.  Many have signs asking for work.  Maybe they are just down on their luck but I trust no one and I am not sorry I bought that pistol.

I have shot it a bunch now.  Like the guy told me, it is much harder to hit with it than the rifles.  But I am better now at shooting it and if I ever have to use the pistol for defense the shot would be at very close range anyway.  Oh, my ‘new’ used handgun is a Smith and Wesson Model 37, and is in thirty eight special caliber.  It does have some recoil but it’s really not too bad and I do like shooting it.

I watch the news on TV most nights if I am at home.  But I question many of the things they say on there.  I just don’t think they always tell the truth on those news stations.  I’m not really sure if it is the news stations that are lying or if it is our government giving them false information.  It could also be both.  They keep saying that things are looking good and unemployment is way down to very low levels but then I see all those people holding signs asking for work here in town.  And I know jobs are almost nonexistent here in the city.