Ricky Raccoon Loves to Shoot

Oh, that Ricky Raccoon! The silly fellow is pretending to show off “his” Smith & Wesson .22 target pistol, but it’s not really his. Ricky snatches everything that isn’t nailed down and many things that are. The .22 belongs to me.

This is the pistol I used the other day when I took my daughter shooting at the range. Liz wielded a Beretta Neo .22. You may call it a toy, but many a paper target was quaking in fear that day. Don’t mess with the Liz.

Me, I was pleased with my own paper-punching. I just love that S&W. Although I had not practiced in a long, long time I was still able to entirely remove the ten-rings from my targets. Heh.

Naturally, I studied the other shooters and gauged their skill. I came to the same conclusion I always do: the skill of the shooter is in inverse proportion to the toughness of his appearance. The men who affect a hard-guy look — the swagger, the backwards cap, the muscle tees — make a lot of banging but present no danger to their intended targets — to everything else around them, yes, but not to their targets. The real marksmen inevitably look like vacationing dentists. Neat, centered, patient, relaxed, innocuous.