I’m the rootin’est, shootin’est contractor in Central Asia

Today was a day on the range – allowing a bunch of non-security people like myself to shoot guns so that we know what it is like. We shoot the M9 pistol by Berretta and the M4 Bushmaster rifle, both of which are available at your local Cabella’s.

The shooting range is north of camp, which was a nice little drive from our camp, heading south, then east, then north to the range. It was the first time I’d been outside the camp and it was, again, very shocking to see the outside world and the kind of desolation that is out there.

Here’s me, shooting the M9.

My stance is all wrong and I look like an idiot, but I’ve got to admit, shooting this pistol was really fun and not as difficult as I thought it would be.

I’ve never shot an assault rifle or a 9mm pistol, so this was all new. Nobody else would step up, so I went first on both weapons. You can see my pattern here for the M4 – not very good, especially since I fired 20 rounds at only 25 meters out.  My rifle was malfunctioning though, and a few of those high shots are due to the fact that even though the selector was on semi-, there were several trigger pulls that resulted in some two-shot bursts. I think if I was expecting them, I could have kept the second rounds down a bit, but as it was, I was just glad to get 50% of my shots in the center, and another 25% in the center-body area.

Here’s the pistol target at the same distance. You can see my leftist tendencies very clearly. But I was proud of this one because that pistol is a bit harder to shoot 20 shots in a row at this distance. Plus, I blew this guy’s right arm right off. Unless he’s a lefty, he’s now completely defenseless.

Our instructor in the picture is actually from Coeur d’Alene, which was cool – to find that there are some other Idahoans here.

So anyway, look out Taliban. Not only will I audit you, but also shoot you. Audit first, shoot second, ask questions later. Audit questions.

Actually, I don’t get to carry a weapon or even shoot one again the entire time I’m here, so this was my first and last hurrah. I think I made the most of it.