My Beautiful Gun

If you really want to stop a conversation dead in its tracks, tell people you own a gun. Depending on where you are located, people often don't know how to process the idea that a young woman is a proud, capable, unapologetic gun owner. Men aren't sure if you're a rabid, man-hating feminist arming yourself against the patriarchy. Women are a little more curious and might ask questions — why did you get a gun, what does it look like — but many of them would never consider handling a gun, much less owning one.

I bought my gun a few years ago. I didn't buy it for self-defense as many people think. When I applied for my gun permit through the police department, I was told that I should go for a "home protection" license rather than a "target license" because it would be easier to get. The home protection license meant I could keep my gun loaded in my home but could only bring it once a month to the shooting range to shoot, carrying it in a locked box with ammo separate.

The target license allowed me to go to the range to shoot as often as I wanted, but I had to keep it in a locked box with ammo separate not only when carrying it but also at home. I wanted a target license. My reason? How in the world would I learn to shoot a gun if I could only go to the range once a month? I genuinely wanted to learn to shoot, to gain that skill. More than anything, I wanted to know that I could safely handle and use a gun.

My fascination with guns has been long-standing. Ever since I was a young girl, I gravitated toward "shoot-em-up" movies and television shows. After bedtime, I'd pull a blanket over my head and across my 19-inch Zenith black and white television in my bedroom so I could surreptitiously watch Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels and Baretta. I was in love with Dirty Harry. The bigger the gun, the better.

Although I glorified guns in my fantasies, in reality I knew that they were inanimate objects that had been so infused with power, danger, mystery and sin and had become a symbol of what was wrong in society that owning one seemed out of the question for years. When I finally decided to buy a gun, I took the entire process very seriously, taking lessons, reading up on them, talking to people who owned them and making sure I was emotionally ready to shoot and own one.