Busting some caps in lower Manhattan

by Sarah Portlock
Columnist

Facing another four years of Bush, I realized it was high time to see what the Second Amendment crowd is so frothed up about. I decided to go shooting.

Last Saturday, I went to the West Side Rifle and Pistol Range, the oldest and only remaining shooting range in Manhattan. Located in a labyrinthine basement beneath a Chelsea office building, the range offers gun enthusiasts an opportunity to practice or shoot at targets.

Gun culture is hardly a foreign phenomenon for me. I come from Virginia, a red state where the opening day of deer season warrants an excused absence from school. When I go home in the fall, on any given day I'll drive past 10 to 20 hunters walking on the side of the road. We have to slow down so we don't hit their dogs.

But I never went hunting myself, and I wanted to better understand this fascination with shooting. Now that I've become a slick city girl, it seemed as good a time as any to figure it out. Besides, Nov. 13 - the magical date when law abiding Virginians can trek into the woods to blow away a stag - is fast approaching.

The range caters to a wide audience. Law enforcement officers and housewives fire away in stalls next to doctors and students.

"We're very unique," said Darren Leung, the range's vice president. "We service people who have permits to fire a weapon in the most anti-gun state in the country."

Earlier, when I'd told my dad that I was going shooting, he playfully reminded me of the National Rifle Association bumper sticker, "Gun Control is Having a Good Grip." These guys aren't kidding, he said - recoil from a discharging weapon can dislocate the shoulder of a newcomer.

Over the course of two hours, I took the mandatory introduction class and started shooting. I fired off 50 rounds of a .22 caliber, semi automatic Ruger 1022 rifle at targets located downrange.

In English, I shot 50 bullets from a long-barreled, no-recoil, single-projector gun at paper targets located 10, 21 and 25 feet away.

And it really wasn't that scary.

Fortunately, the recoil on my gun wasn't as bad as I'd thought, which was good news for my shoulder. Bullets shoot out of the rifle at a top speed of 545 miles per hour, and have enough umph to maintain momentum up for about two miles.

Once my instructor taught me the basics in the classroom - how to hold the gun, how to fix it if it breaks - I was, well, fair game for the range.

When you finish a magazine cartridge, or if there's a jam, there are three steps a shooter must take to ensure safety.

1. Safety on: Make sure the safety pin is engaged.

2. Magazine out: Make sure the magazine is out and no rounds are in the gun.

3. Action open: Show others that your gun is void of rounds and thus not capable of firing.

My instructor had me recite them in the classroom, and while I was in the stall, I realized their gravity. This thing I was shooting could cause some major damage if it went off at the wrong angle.

I put on my "eyes and ears," my goggles and earmuffs, and went in. I loaded my five magazines, smiled at my instructor and aimed at the white piece of paper he'd navigated to rest 10 feet into the range.

My first goal, he said, was to shoot the paper and then get my second shot into the same hole. Ten rounds later, I had successfully missed each previous shot by a good inch.

During Round 2, I finally got a shot close to the one before. And then, by my fifth and final set, I not only hit the '10' in the middle of the bull's-eye, but I also got three shots within close proximity of each other - and the bull's-eye.

The Virginian blood was kicking in.

In the second, third and fourth magazine rounds, I moved my targets back to 21 and 25 feet, shooting with only moderate success.

The trick to shooting lies in lining up a tiny red pin known as the "front sight" at the tip of the gun with a tiny pocket-like contraption, the "rear sight," on the barrel. Aiming with the front-sight is key to hitting the target, but lining up the front-and rear sights is the key to shooting accurately.

This, it turns out, is easier said than done, since I was shaking as I held the gun. Luckily, my instructor suggested I lean against the wooden bar and turn a bit differently. With this additional support, my left shoulder no longer held the brunt of the three-pound gun, and there was no kickback whatsoever. Victory!

Later that afternoon, I noticed I had gun-dirt under my fingernails, a definite first. There's something to be said about legally firing a gun in a basement in Manhattan. It was fun, exciting and powerfully adventurous - and I'll take that.

And as the bazooka-toting California governor once said, I'll be back. •

Sarah Portlock is a columnist for Washington Square News.