TexasCHLforum.com

A friend of mine is originally from Texas, but has lived in Bakersfield, CA for the past 15+ years. He's recently decided to overcome his fear of guns: purchased a 9mm XD and signed up his whole family for a 12 week, one evening/week course on gun safety, shooting, etc. He even qualified for a CA CHL last week!

He was in town this week, and I took him & his two sons (ages 14 & 16) to PSC today. They'd never shot a rifle before, and I set them up with my AR-10 clone at 100 yards. One of the cute moments was when they were loading rounds into the FAL mags: "How many rounds do these hold?" "20" "20??!?!!! Wow!!!" - don't think they'd ever seen > 10 round mags before :-(

They did great with the rifle, and their Dad & I eventually had to pry them away to go shoot a variety of pistols - .22 Colt, Walther PPS, S&W Model 19 4", Glock 23, and S&W M&P .40. Paper targets, then steels. An incredibly beautiful day for the outdoor range, too.

Very fun to give them the opportunity, and see them have so much fun. Very proud of my friend for getting his CHL, as well. Bakersfield is a pretty red county, plus he's a pharmacist - so he was pretty much a lock for qualifying for one. But he still had to slog through all the paperwork, and write a 'mother may I' letter.

Oh - the boys taped a penny to the target on the 100 yard line, and eventually managed to put a round through it! They were really tickled, and will be taking it home as a souvenir. Their Dad & I cautioned them about bringing it to school, though. I can just imagine the school district freaking out, deciding that they might be homicidal maniacs, suspending them, sending them away for psychiatric evaluations, etc etc etc

...fine day...and a taste of freedom...you did well to host them so generously...

thanks - we were out for drinks & dinner w. him & his wife NYE, and their other friends were nagging them about returning to Texas. Nice to give them an extra whiff of what freedom smells like :-)

Congrats to all... you for the nice outing for him and his kids, and for your friend for overcoming fears, enduring all the CA red tape and for being that much closer to defending himself and his family.

That's tremendous. I picked up my son just before Christmas and he is home for a month on college break. I told him we would get to the range at least once while he was home. He was thrilled. He attends Berklee College of Music in Boston. His comment was that going to shoot pistols was so "Anti-Massachusetts".

He said that everyone he encounters up there is either anti gun or totally ignorant. They get a really weird look on their face when he tells them that he shoots pistols often. Apparently he gets a cheap thrill out of telling them that I have a CHL. The good news is that he is very comfortable being a sane voice in a psychotic (liberal) world. He also has pretty good SA in the big city.