What’s it like to fire a Daisy bb gun? It’s an experience I’ll never forget. Everybody knows bb guns are scary looking and ought to be banned, but I thought I would try to shoot one without any preconceived notions. What I encountered changed me forever.I took a deep breath and determined to enter a Wal-Mart. A “greeter” met me with, “Howdy, welcome to Wal-Mart.” I’m from the north. We don’t say “Howdy”. I sneer back at the micro aggression and strain to hold back tears of rage. Barely controlling myself, I asked where I could find a bb gun. He directed me to “sporting goods”, still smiling and gloating over his slyly delivered offense.
I go to the “sporting goods” section, a perfect charnel house where implements of sulfur, death, and destruction are openly and brazenly sold. I notice a bb gun just lying on a shelf. I reach for it as if it was a poisonous snake, wondering if it will go off when I pull it off the shelf. That’s right, a shelf. Where anybody could get it. I go to the counter and the death merchant asks me if I wanted bbs to go with it. He even had the audacity to offer me “Copperhead” brand bbs! How could this inbred hick not know that I see a therapist twice a week to treat my herpephobia? I buy the gun and the recommended bbs. I’m dizzy going out to the parking lot. A passing stranger, attired in a camouflage assault t-shirt, asks, “Sir, you okay?” “How dare you assume my gender!” I shout back. “Sorry, just checkin’,” he said as if my health was any of his business. But the worst was yet to come.
I went to a wooded area to fire the bb gun, a Daisy 509 Buck, probably made by Bushmaster. I bruised my knuckles operating the cocking lever. Taking aim, I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the spring loaded plunger going “boing” startled me. I became disoriented watching the bb arc towards its target. The “dink!” sound it made bouncing off a coke can was horribly loud. The recoil was horrendous, like a bazooka or some other recoilless weapon, and it dislocated my shoulder. I vomited and cried. I still have PTSD. Anxiety. Irritability. Nightmares. I may never again be the same.
But enough about me, at least for now. Worst of all, these weapons of mass destruction are available to the general public. It’s time we stopped listening to the paid lobbyists of the National BB Gun Association who assure us that bb guns are hardly ever used in the commission of a crime. They scare me, they should scare you, and they ought to be banned.