Leslie Langtry; Army of One

Many people might be surprised to know that I have more handguns than my husband. They would be equally shocked (and maybe somewhat concerned about knowing me) if they knew that several of my guns are more expensive than his (by the way, the same is true for my shoes and handbags. Not that he carries handbags that is.).

You may think that strange considering that he actually uses them in his work. But if you were aware of my self-destructive urges for all things PRADA and GUCCI, it makes perfect sense.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Scaring the hell out of my gentle readers. Except for the pirates. (This will affect my application to join the crew positively, right Hellion?). My interest in guns goes back probably to my adolescent love of all things pulp. My comic book heroes fought bad guys who had big, steel semi-automatics and some of my heroes used them - usually with one in each hand (which looked soooo awesome in primary colors!).

My father had a toy gun of his from the '40's. It was a huge .45 replica and it was heavy and looked totally real. I loved that thing. However, growing up in a liberal household also meant we had political cartoons around the house in favor of gun control on the fridge (I think my parents thought that confusing their children was somehow educational and not at all cruel). I was a bit of an anomaly (which sounds so much nicer than "fantasy-deluded geek" ). But I grew up thinking that if there were no guns, there'd be no violence. Kumblahyah blah blah.

Then, I met Tom. When Tom got out of the Army and moved all of his stuff into our apartment, I was a bit surprised to see duffel after duffel of amunition and armaments streaming through the front door. Had I married into a militaristic sleeper cell? Was I destined to see my life played out by Lindsey Wagner in a Hallmark tv special? I expressed my self-righteous, liberal horror. He decided I needed an education.

We were living in Lynchburg, Virginia (which has as their town hero a guy known as "The Lame Lion of Lynchburg," which is funny on it's own but for another time, perhaps) and Tom took me to a gun show (where you could smoke and they even gave out tobacco samples). He bought me a 9mm semiautomatic and decided to begin my education the next day at a shooting club in Roanoke.

Let me tell you why this did not work. First of all, a semiauto is very complicated and if you've never racked a slide before...okay, since I'd never racked a slide before, I found I couldn't. It was too heavy and I not only had wimpy little T-Rex arms, but also wimpy little fingers. Tom bought me a gun for a guy who's handled guns. The bastard.

The gun club had the answer. They recommended I start with a revolver and at the time, Smith and Wesson was making guns for women - it's Ladysmith line. My first real gun was a lovely .38 that was smaller to fit my hand, and it had a beautiful, handcarved mahogany grip. The club also had a class just for women taught by a retired female Secret Service agent. I signed up.

Tom then bought me the book, Armed & Female, by Paxton Quigley. I used to read it on airplanes (this was back in the early '90's). It kept the lecherous assholes who assumed I was a slutty college chick from talking to me. Sigh. I loved that. Well, not the part about being a slutty college chick, but the part about intimidating rednecks. MOM - SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. Okay, I actually liked the slutty college chick thingy too.

The class was amazing. Over nine weeks, we learned the history and parts of a gun, how to take it apart and put it back together, and finally, how to shoot. We shot everything with a firing pin. Police Officers were frequent visitors to the class and told us over and over that 1) they would rather teach women than men anyday and 2) women were far more terrifying to them than men in a life and death situation. (I think we all knew that, didn't we?)

Oh yeah. The class ended with a Practical Pistol Shooting competition. I came in second to a female police officer. The trophy sits in the playroom and the kids get a kick out of telling their friends it's not their dad's trophy - it's mom's.

I still shoot - not competitively anymore. We have a nice little range here at home I use. It's a phenomenal stress reliever. After about fifty shots dead center to a paper target and I feel better than I do after an entire box of homicidal-urge-erasing Midol.

And don't worry about me. I'm still a total bleeding-heart liberal...a well-armed one, but a liberal nonetheless.

The Assassin