I’ve been working and semi-living in Maryland for about a month now. By semi-living, I still own a house in New Hampshire and Yosemite Sam, Cooper (the basset hound), and my cat are there. I’m missing them all very much, but I’m no longer living in a motel. That’s an improvement.
During my month of semi-living here, I’ve done only one gunnie activity. I went down to the NRA Range in Virginia last Saturday. It’s a very nice range, although I wish it had more than fifteen lanes. I had to wait an hour and a half for an open lane and that got kinda old.
When you go there, you have to register. There’s a one-time $10.00 processing fee and you get a bar-coded, laminated card that marks you as a certified range user. The range-meisters make you complete a written range-safety test after you read a handout on range safety.
Sitting near the range counter, I was able to see many new people come to the range. Range-meisters ended up with quite a stack of tests. It warmed my heart to see that many more people join the range—although I’ll have to compete with them for range time (grrr).
When I finally got to shoot, the experience was great. A range safety officer makes sure that guns are always pointed down range. He had to dress down a college-aged dude who wasn’t practicing good muzzle control. I stayed until the range safety officer gave me a five minute warning. By the time I got my gun box closed, two new people were moving into my lane. That’s a quick turnaround.
I haven’t experienced any other gunnie goodness here. There was a gun show in Virginia my first weekend here, but that coincided with a bout of flu that left me lying in a camp cot (all I had to sleep on for over a week) hoping I would die and thus end the misery.
The next weekend there was another gun show in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. I couldn’t visit it because I flew back up to New Hampshire to see my husband, dog, and cat. Also, we brought a small truck load of furniture down to Maryland including a real bed. Yosemite Sam flew back.
Do I have an opinion about gun laws in Maryland? The laws are better than in Massachusetts, but a lot worse than they are in New Hampshire and Virginia. I plan on visiting a Maryland range this weekend and maybe a gun store. What I see there could be interesting. I’ll let you know how that goes.
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