Sarah Nyhan

I don’t like the word weak but I kinda felt like you were holding back in some way from telling the story fully in your own way.

I just wanted to offer up my stream of consciousness thoughts below. Maybe something in there will stand out to you. But please don’t copy me word for word. You are very much the better story teller. I want people to hear your voice, not mine.

I spent almost four hours talking to my brother tonight and one of his questions was to ask what I had been up to lately with you. I told him about the gun and the shooting. It stuck out to me that all us city folks know about guns is what we’ve seem in movies and video games. I was relating to him how it made such a big impact to me when you set up the brand new target and let me see exactly where the shots were hitting. In my mind it was only going to be three or four holes on the board but when I saw the range of damage even at a long distance it really hit home for me. I kept asking and asking to try to understand how one little bullet could have such an impact. And then when you showed me how it looked like the size of a fist when I shot closer and you said, “He’s dead.” That really took the gun ownership and responsibility to another level for me. And my brother didn’t know those things either and he was also interested and the seriousness struck him when I told him. He asked about the kick of the gun and I told him how you were teaching me to handle it responsibly at home. And of course I told him I didn’t want anything to do with the guns after I went to the indoor shooting range with all that pressure and stress. I told him I loved learning from you and how fun it was to shoot cactus. I told him about offering the experience of coming to shoot on the land and he thought that was a great idea! He said the city folks know how to look to find experiences being offered like that. But he said he could understand how people out in the country and on the land might not realize what a big deal it is to city folks who want to learn but have no connection to the land. He thought experiences like these would encourage others to buy land of their own and learn how to manage it. He laughed and loved the same parts of the story that I did: about the 1.5 seconds and prickly pear.