2DREZQ

I just returned from spending four days in the Nevada desert at one of the premier shooting schools in the country. I learned a lot.

Not, mind you, that I wasn't very good with small arms already, but the quality of instruction raised my skill set more than a few notches.

I also confronted a few of my own doubts head-on.

I've never had to shoot at lifelike targets before, and I found it more difficult than I would have imagined. It has caused a reset of my moral compass that, I'm not ashamed to admit, was overdue.

One of the things we learned was to visualize the actual situation in practice sessions. I did that, and got a surprise: When the target was a woman, and not a ratty looking guy, I hesitated. I could see the gun. I knew mentally that she represented a real threat. I couldn't shoot without giving her a chance that I didn't give any of the others. (Holster to double-tap to the chest well under one second at my best.)

Why?

I vizualized a real living, breathing person, heart and lungs and brain. I've spent my entire adult life saving people's lives, not taking them. Their worthiness to live was not a part of the equation. I just did what they needed to help, and sometimes to ease the suffering when help was beyond mortal reach.

Then, I looked a photographic target in the eyes and saw a living person that I was about to put two 115 grain hollow-point nine-millimeter bullets through.

Could I do it? Just hitting a paper photo had my pulse up and my hand shaking (yes, my aim was off, but not enough to avoid fatal hits). Could I really assume the responsibility for ending a human life violently in under one second, one tick of the fastest hand on the clock?

I lay awake that night for a very long time and wondered about it. I've carried a gun for most of twenty years, practiced until I could beat almost anyone, even from behind the power curve. But I never let myself think about who I might have to beat some day.

I reached a decision. With more certainty in my conclusion-that coming from having tested myself unflinchingly-that yes; I could kill, and I will kill if I have to to save my own life, or the life of another innocent person. Anyone who presents an immediate threat to my life has, by default, forfeited his right to live. My life is a good one. I do good things. I contribute to society, and the world is better with me in it than not. He who would end my life prematurely is a bad person. If he would kill me, he would kill you, and the world is better off without him if it is a either him or me. I may (God forbid.) be the instrument of that man's death, but the choice to die will have been his, not mine.

I understand more about gunfighting now than I ever did, and I'm better now than I ever was.

I have stood up to the toughest opponent a man can face short of a real gunfight: myself.