This is not a toy

A year ago, I wrote this post about going to a shooting range in Manhattan. Learning to shoot a rifle was pretty fun, even if we were required to sit through nearly 2 hours of education before doing it.

This past weekend, though, my friend and I upped the ante. And by that I mean we went to Pennsylvania, where all the restrictions we faced in New York around what guns you can shoot without a license are apparently nonexistent.

Each party is assigned an instructor, and they take you around and do everything for you - so while at the rifle range in NYC I had to load my own gun, here we had a guy set it up and pretty much hand it over. Which frankly is fine with me because I never plan on owning a gun.

So instructor man starts out by saying, "Do you guys want to try pistols, rifles, or shotguns?" at which point I got too excited and yelled "PISTOLS" because seriously, all I've wanted to do since shooting a rifle is shoot a handgun.

My wish was granted.

I was shooting a nine millimeter in this second picture, which my friend Lauren and I were pretty excited about because rap songs always talk about "ninas" and now we feel all sorts of gangster and shit. Also gangster - the fact that as I looked through all these pictures that Lauren took of me, I couldn't help but think about how good my hair looks. I mean, LOOK AT IT. So pretty. For once.

The last gun we shot - the "grand finale," as our instructor called it, was this bad boy.

This is some badass assault rifle that, I have to be honest, was a little intense for me because the gun kicks back straight into your cheekbone. But it looks cool.

I don't know when I'll ever shoot a gun again (unless we go back to this place in the future, which...we very well may), but this was an entertaining way to spend an afternoon, for sure. And, just throwing it out there, my paper target guy had a ton of holes through his head and heart. POW.