By Philip Bourjaily David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

My shorthair, Jed, is now five and a half months old and has outgrown two collars. As of Sunday, he is a puppy kindergarten graduate.  In school, he learned his name, how to sit, stay, lie down, heel, and how to play well with others. Now it’s time to start thinking about guns and birds.

Conventional wisdom for avoiding gunshyness says you start by making lots of noise at dinner time. As a kid, I remember shooting a cap pistol over my dad’s springers while he fed them. I have been dutifully making noise, whacking the measuring cup against Jed’s dogfood bowl at dinner time, but honestly, I don’t know how much it helps.

What I really believe is, if dogs hear gunfire in the field while they’re excited and having fun, it doesn’t bother them. My setter Ike hates fireworks, thunderclaps and other loud noises but gun shots in the field don’t faze him, because he associates them with a warm, dead bird on the ground. So, on Monday I took the dogs on afternoon run at the local marsh, knowing that early duck season is in and we would hear some guns going off.  As Jed ran around enjoying himself he heard several gunshots, including a couple that were fairly close. He looked up, noticed that neither Ike nor I reacted, and went back to what he was doing, which was sniffing a catfish carcass.

We have a way to go before I try shooting a shotgun over his head at a bird, but so far, so good. I am certainly open for suggestions, advice and cautionary gunshyness tales as I proceed. Any ideas?

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

I am indebted to Caitlin Peters and Brian McClintock of the Field & Stream staff who sent me a post that ran on the Huffington Blog. It’s called “Drill, Drill, Drill,” and was written by an essayist and playwright named Eve Ensler.  Ms. Ensler does not like anything about Governor Palin, and most particularly, she does not like the fact that Governor Palin hunts.

Here are the hunting-related excerpts from the post, along with my comments. The purpose of all this is to demonstrate that when it comes to firearms or hunting, you can say anything and people will believe it. “Drill” is all over the Internet, and has the ignorant, the hysterical, and the downright silly jumping up and down and barking at the moon.

“Sarah Palin believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle.”

There’s nothing wrong with believing in guns.  To quote from the film Conspiracy, “I have become mistrustful of words, but a gun means what it says.”  The sinister significance of the Austrian rifle is lost on me. I’ve never thought that Austrian rifles were any more evil than rifles from any other country. Maybe Ms. Ensler is not crazy about carved oakleaves  and fish-scale checkering in stocks, on which Austrians dote.

“I dreamed last night that she [Sarah Palin] was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starving Polar Bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one or touched one….Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.”

Dear Ms. Ensler: Polar bears are not white; they are pale yellow. If you ever touch one, you will probably never touch anything else. I like polar bears but I don’t need them. I need $15,000 to buy the Pete Norene .416 Rigby at Cabela’s. Oh yes; “ polar bears” is not capitalized, but “Arctic” is.

“She has shot 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.”

It’s quite possible that Sarah Palin has shot 40 caribou over a period of years. Her family may qualify for a subsistence-hunting license, which would make it both legal and common. But as for dropping them all at once, field-dressing and transporting 40 caribou at one fell swoop would  require a brigade of the Alaska National Guard.

But then, this is the Internet, so why worry?

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

“Never mistake activity for achievement.”—John Wooden, arguably the greatest college basketball coach of all time.

I’ve been spending the summer trying to get the level of my pistol shooting from heartrending to poor, and have been reminded of a couple of truths along the way. That 10 percent of you who actually practice their shooting, take heed:

1. As Coach Wooden says, it will not do you any good to go out and fire a whole case of shells unless one of two things happens: a) You finish by shooting better or b) you finish knowing why you’re not shooting better. A pile of empty casings on the ground, by itself, means only that you are deafer and more broke than you were when you started.

2. Unless you are a true expert, it’s almost impossible to diagnose yourself. I’ve had the help of a friend who is a real expert, and he has spotted a couple of things I could be doing differently and/or better.

3. Progress is not linear. You do not get better at a steady rate. There are times when you will feel like you’re beating your head against the wall, and then, for no apparent reason, you break through to a new level.

4. Sometimes, you do have to burn ammo. I just ordered 2,000 rounds of Speer.22 LR Pistol Match from Midway Shooters Supply to replace the 2,000 I’ve burned up over the past several months.

5. As Dirty Harry Callahan said, “A man has to know his limitations.” Eventually, no matter how hard and how smart you work, you will reach the point where you can go no further. That’s fine. You can have just as much fun as a B-Class trap shooter as you can in AA Class.   

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

A little while ago, I stated that Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) was one of the very worst anti-gun Senators. Now, my fellow Americans, in the waning hours before the Second Great Depression, I think it is time for specifics.

If you go to Senator Biden’s website, you will not find anything about gun control. (At least I could not find anything.) What you will find is a photo of Sen. Biden with Former President Bubba and his then-attorney general, Janet Reno, the nice lady who brought us the Waco massacre.

So what follows is taken from the NRA/ILA website, which has been keeping track of Pal Joey (and if you would like to read more, you can do so by Googling NRA/ILA Joe Biden).  Biden is not merely one of the many-termed hacks who have done their share to make the Senate a joke; he is a true mover and shaker when it comes to chipping away at the Second Amendment. Sen Biden:

*Supports a renewal on the 1994 Clinton gun ban. Sen. Biden’s current bill (S. 2237) includes 200 (more or less) makes and models of semi-auto rifles, shotguns, and handguns.
*Is credited by the Brady campaign as being “…a consistent supporter.”
*Has voted to ban semi-automatic firearms, ban various types of hunting, sporting, and self-defense ammunition, ban magazines holding more than 10 rounds, and impose a waiting period on handgun sales.
*Refused—along with Sen. Obama—to sign the legal brief opposing the D.C. gun ban before Heller went before the Supreme Court. More than 300 members of Congress did sign.
*Proposed in a Senate bill (S. 1970) in 1989 to ban the AR-15 as an “assault weapon,” named eight similar firearms as “assault weapons,” and authorized the BATF to recommend to Congress any other firearms, regardless of type, to be banned as “additional assault weapons.”

A busy fellow, no? You are free to think of him merely as the guy who steps on his crank once a week and gives Rush Limbaugh something to talk about, but if he gets to be Vice President, none of us will find him a bit funny.