PHOENIX (By Jon Garrido)
November 20, 2006 — I
grew up in rural Arizona with a love for guns. I
still remember my first gun. A thousand shot Red
Ryder BB gun. I don't remember exactly how old I
was. Somewhere around 6 or 7 years old. I moved up
quickly. My second gun was a Daisy pump 50 shot BB
gun. I was the only one of my gang who had a Daisy
pump, much more powerful than my Red Ryder. I was
the envy of all my buddies. I think I was 7 or 8
years old. We went everywhere with our BB guns and
anything that moved was fair game. I remember
lizards. They were fast but they always came to a
stop after a short burst run.
Pigeons were a lot easier. I guess that is where the
term comes from. I cleaned my first pigeons when I
as 8 or 9 and we roasted them in a fire. We all
seemed to carry salt with us in those days.
At age 9-10, I moved up again. This time my parents
bought me a Crossman pellet gun. It used CO2 gas to
propel pellets and it was a great gun. I still have
it. I gave it to my son once but now it is back home
in my closet where it belongs.
It seem I would never be old enough but the time
finally arrived — I finally got my 22. A Remington
bolt action. Now doves, quail and rabbits were the
targets of choice. I think I was 11 years old.
All my friends had 22s. We did not have to go far to
shoot our guns. Just out the back door. All we had
to do was go behind my grandparents' house and shoot
targets. When targets became boring, off we went to
explore the hills and mountains around our little
town of Superior, Arizona.
A 22 was a great gun to start with but my hunting
was limited to small game until the Christmas of
1955. That was the year I got my Winchester Model 94
30-30. I was 12 years old and I killed my first deer
when I was 13.
In those years, there were deer everywhere. I
remember shooting deer and taking them back to my
grandmother who made the deer meat into jerky. It
seems our pockets were always full of dried jerky.
Her jerky dried with chili was the best. We probably
shot more javelinas than deer but they were more
trouble cleaning than they were worth eating.
When I married my
college sweetheart, our first Christmas together, my
wife's brother gave me a Dan Wesson 357 with a 6
inch barrel. I could hit a oil drum a 100 yards
away. Great gun but I never killed any animal with
it. I always went back to my faithful 30-30 for
hunting.
I was born in Superior, Arizona, a copper mining
rural town of 4,000 persons. Probably a lot less now
because the mine has been closed for twenty years.
Superior is an hour and half east of Phoenix. My mom was
born there and my dad was born up the road in
Jerome, then the site of the biggest copper mine in
Arizona. Jerome is now one of Arizona's ghost towns.
Update:
November 27, 2006 — I still love guns. I tried out a
Kahr P9
9 mm at the shooting range and gun shop around the
corner. I put five shots into
four inches at 25 yards.
I have decided to get a gun permit for carrying a
concealed weapon for I find myself
more and more being in places where some of the
people I encounter look like vigilantes out looking
for undocumented Mexicans and then there is the skin
head types up in the mountains near here.
I have a hard time
with gun control for the above uses but I have mixed
feelings about automatic machine guns. I have
considered buying an AK-47 for protection on the
small ranch I have. I would consider some form of
reasonable registration of these type guns.
Update:
November 28, 2006 — Contacted the NRA to pursue 2008
national elections partnership. Waiting for
response.
