# 467 - Backhanding a .38 Bullet

This week, my oldest daughter is getting VERY close to delivering her first baby. The doctor thinks she might even deliver before this Friday, but she's officially due in just about a week.

My oldest daughter, Heather.
I sure love my first-born and am so proud
of her. Plus, she's about to give me a
grand-child...I am blessed.

Everyone in the family is experiencing a serious under-current of positive tension as we wait for the news that the baby is on the way!

A good way for her little sister, for us soon-to-be grand-parents and my future son-in-law, Brice, to blow off steam was to shoot some targets. Of course, little Stefie is always a sharp-shooting force to be reckoned with, and below you'll see a video of her shooting a .22 rifle at targets across the acreage, on a windy afternoon.

http://youtu.be/cnB0OBZqvAo

Her dad uses the binoculars to help her perfect her shots. She's hitting the target each time, but he's helping her to get long-range bull's eye shots.

Brice found us all ear-plugs...my ears were ringing with a high-frequency-pitch after our night of shooting the big guns.

We had too much fun.

Don't laugh, but yours truly has preferred to stick with the Daisy BB gun --- only to have the kiddos make fun of me. Well, until I hit seven cans in a row, after calling each can that I was going to shoot and then hitting it. So, Brice made a bet with me, if they beat me in the BB gun competition, which I proved is NOT so easy, then I would have to shoot the .22 rifle for the first time. Believe me, this was a serious bet.

I had never shot a rifle of any sort.

I should've known those kids would be determined to beat my BB gun shooting record just so I would be forced to shoot the rifle. It didn't take long before both Stefie and Brice had surpassed me with the BB gun on the number of consecutive target shots, so I would have to hold up my end of the bargain and shoot the .22 rifle.

Screen shot of me firing the .22 rifle, taken
from a video, so it has the arrow in middle.

Blah.

After I got into the grove of shooting the .22, I was handed a small gun that I was told was a .25 or something like that, so I automatically made the leap in a thought-process that the sound and kick of this tiny gun would be only one step up from the .22 rifle. Boy...I was played. The little gun I held and shot without much anxiety turned out to have a MASSIVE BANG and kick with a brilliant flash.

I did NOT like it. It scared me very bad. Jerks.

That night, we ended up shooting a .22 rifle, three different 9 mm guns, a .25 cutie with a hard kick, a Daisy BB gun, pellet gun, a .38 special and a .45 that was Stefie's college graduation present. I shot three of the guns.

Stefie shooting the .22 rifle.

We ate pizza, drank cold beer and iced-tea, then shot a couple hundred rounds. And this is how rural our acreage is folks...not one law enforcement officer comes out to check on the "shots fired," which is extremely odd after living in the Greater Houston area for so many years because one shot usually signals the sound of BIG trouble.

Out here, fire-arm sounds of all kinds is "normal." See the video below...can you imagine this kind of family fun?

http://youtu.be/-FNXzoMjiXU

However, we did have one odd thing happen that could have been bad. Brice was shooting the .38 and the bullet ricocheted off a wood beam that had a bolt inside it. A bolt we didn't know existed. The bullet did not explode, but came straight back at us on the deck and hit me in the hand HARD between my knuckles. I let out a scream of pain, instantly knowing it was not a shell casing, but NEVER imaging it had been a bullet. It happened so fast and so hard, it was a shocking moment.

Stefie was standing right next to me and thankfully the bullet didn't hit her, but she saw it hit me and her sharp eyes saw the bullet fall onto the deck. Of course, we knew which one it was because it wasn't a regular bullet with the backside attached and it wasn't a shell casing. As I was standing there trying to regain focus through the pain, Stefie picked up the bullet that hit me and Sgt. Dave suddenly put in the order to stop all shooting.

Miraculously, my fingers were intact and the skin didn't even break, but the tissue between the knuckles felt MUCH OUCH and the vessels at the back of my hand began bulging and swelling.

Since my husband has a tad bit of knowledge in ballistics and Brice is about to graduate with his degree in Criminology, which includes indepth studies in ballistics along with his hunting experience through his life, the guys went on a mission to dig through the target zone to figure out what the .38 bullet had initially hit to cause a ricochet. Like an investigative team, they figured it out.

Obviously, this was a much bigger deal than me, Mrs. No-Shooting-Experience person, even realized.

Needless to say, I now understand what a huge blessing we had been given. My guardian angel was, yet again, putting in over-time on my behalf. In fact, I think Stefie and I share the same guardian angel since we were literally standing two feet apart when the bullet hit my hand instead of the front of her neck area.

Yes, guns have their dangers, even when the barrel is pointed to a far away destination. Ricochets happen, even at shooting ranges. No matter, I stand firm with my right to carry and use a gun whenever I choose because the loss of such a right means that "we the people" are less powerful. The right to have a gun did not happen because someone liked shooting, the right came because our nation was began by a group of people who fled big government that saw it fit to intrude upon the personal lives of citizens in every form and fashion.

Historically, if a nation's citizens are being disarmed, then big trouble is about to begin because crooked political-types feel more empowered as their "followers" become less empowered. It's a pretty simple concept that many of us understand and won't chance having to learn...again.

That right to have a gun signals the strength of people who stood up to tyranny, and I won't squander their blood. Some people get it and some people don't. Since I've lived outside of the United States of America, I know how our rights should be treasured, even if you don't want to exercise those rights.

That aside...

My hand took the ricocheted .38 bullet as Stefie watched, and that girl's eyes grew as big as teacup saucers. And, we moved our targets much farther away.

Now, the running joke is...Brice shot his future mother-in-law. We took a photo of the gun and the bullet that hit me as a keepsake, but I will be getting that bullet made into a necklace as a reminder that I am so dang tough that I BACKHANDED a .38 bullet.

In all seriousness, thank you to my Guardian Angel for making me bullet-proof for this night and for letting me be the shield that protected my daughter from a rogue bullet in a freak moment.

I'm ready for the next shooting competition. Bring it.