At the Girls on Fire Top Shot event, women learned to handle firearms safely, gaining confidence, skill, and respect for gun safety.
It is said to be important to know how to handle a firearm, especially for self-defence, but a gun in the wrong hands, especially those of an untrained person, is a real problem.
As someone who had never fired a gun before, choosing which side to pick in the fight for or against firearms was difficult in the past because I didn’t have any idea of what it entailed.
The last Saturday in August went off with a bang, which turned out to be the sound of a 50-calibre machine gun being shot at the Johannesburg Metro Police Department shooting range as part of the Girls on Fire Top Shot event.
Gun most men’s dream
It’s a gun most men dream of and the very first firearm I learned to handle on the last weekend of International Women’s Month.
On arrival, I was briefed and equipped with earmuffs to block the sound and glasses before I was led through the shooting range, that held eight challenges for the day.
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Never did I think shooting on a Saturday would be one of the most fun days of my year so far.
With little to no experience with firearms, I never thought I would enjoy learning to fire different, powerful firearms at targets with strangers.
The day started early with 10 groups of women rotating over 10 shooting ranges, each with a different target and firearm.
Tannie, get your gun
It was a blessing to start with a Truvelo 50-Cal, because it was Tannie, get your gun – women learn to shoot the loudest, heaviest and biggest gun of the day, so everything else afterwards seemed lighter and easier to handle.
The women went from fragile and scared to smiling and fierce and as they progressed, everyone’s strengths started surfacing, including mine.
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While I was right-handed dominant and hit most of the targets, I discovered halfway through that I was left-eyed dominant, which changed my shooting style.
I got more comfortable as we completed various shooting ranges.
I also fell in love with the bigger firearms, such as the rifles and shotguns, compared to the Glock and Alien pistol, and realised that long-distance shooting at small items was not for me. I have other talents.
New personal favourite gun
Some of the firearms we used on the day included Alien & 15-22, Glock, PCC (Pistol Calibre Carbine), G3/FN FAL: 7.62X51/308, PR22 and my new personal favourite, the self-loading shotgun.
Not only did the shotgun handle comfortably because it is longer, it also reloaded easily, like something you would see in the movies.
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What you don’t see in the movies is how heavy some of these guns are and how difficult it is to handle them.
The Truvelo 308 and Truvelo 50-Cal were the biggest and loudest firearms of the day.
The rifle and the Glock were a lot heavier and not as easy to fire.
Concern about high rate of stolen and illegal guns
While it was all fun and games, I left the range with a new and profound love and respect for firearms.
I was also concerned about the high rate of stolen and illegal guns in South Africa.
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I equally understood the wishes of interest groups to restrict and regulate firearms, because as much as I liked the idea of being able to handle a firearm correctly, the danger of a stranger who doesn’t is bigger.
