My wife is from Columbus, Indiana which is a medium-sized town about forty-five minutes south of Indianapolis and approximately thirty miles from Greenwood, a southern Indianapolis suburb. This year our annual visit to see the family and grandkids took place between June 30th and July 16th. Among the many “vacation” goals I had aside from golf, playing cards and games and sleeping in, this year I felt called to buy my step-daughter Victoria and her husband Brandon both 9mm handguns.
It started when I noticed a purple Ruger EC9-S sitting in the case down at Pinnacle Sporting Goods in West Lebanon. I remember it being one of her favorite colors, so I sent a picture of it and asked if she was interested. She said it was almost identical to the one she’d seen a week or so prior and that she’d love to have it. Her father is deceased and came from a family of military and police officers, so I have always tried to think of what he would want for his children. With the world getting crazier and more violent by the day I felt compelled to buy it for her. A few days later my friend Tanner asked if I was interested in his Smith and Wesson M&P Shield and I felt the urge to get it for my son-in-law.
Prior to the trip, I worked with Tanner, who has a certain level of expertise when it comes to firearms, on some drills. The obligation to pass these skills on to my step-daughter and her husband was both a burden and joy. Sadly, I feel so compelled to provide for their safety, while at the same time it’s an honor to be able to stand in that gap at such a time as this. Having gone shooting with my boys during the prior summer at a slick indoor range in North Vernon, Indiana I envisioned taking my step-daughter and her husband and what they would need to learn in the short time we had together.
Firearms on television have always been used as props to add drama and excitement to movies and films. Playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers as a kid gave the cheap thrill of using guns in quasi-real-world scenarios. I recall even cap guns having a subtle thrill to them. It isn’t until you’re firing live rounds inside a range, or even outside for that matter, that you begin to realize the stunning power one has when holding a loaded gun. If you are lucky like me you will have found men and women who understand the gravity of owning a firearm and they will teach it to you accordingly. If you are ever around someone with guns who doesn’t take it very, very seriously, you should make that the last time you go shooting with them. It’s that serious because people with guns who aren’t serious are dangerous to everyone around them.
On our first outing, my step-daughter conveyed as much. Her natural nerves kicked in and she struggled to hit the target sheet from as short as five yards. As we watched her on video we could see her anticipating the recoil by dipping the barrel prior to the report of the bullet. The nice gentleman who worked there came in long enough to go over some basics and by the end of our session she was comfortably hitting targets from five and even ten yards.
Though she and I are not terribly close since I became her step-dad as she was a junior in high school after which she moved from Vermont back to Indiana, this was one of the nicest bonding moments we’d ever shared and I felt satisfied I was doing the right thing as awful as it was to think about why I had to do it.
The following week on Wednesday, July 13th I went over how to tear down and clean the handguns with her given our plans were to go shooting one more time that afternoon. We met up with her husband and, no pun intended, had a blast working on gun safety, certain skills, and admiring how far she’d come in such a short time.
The day before that we had taken two of her kids for a day of fun to the Cummins children’s playground in town, then to the Dairy Queen that sponsored NASCAR racer Tony Stewart (a Columbus native) for ice cream, after which I suggested we check out a watch shop I’d seen in my smart-map suggestions list. Every few years around Father’s Day I need a new watch, so, it was a day for spontaneity and we made the trip. I had no idea we were headed to the Greenwood Mall.
Thank God it was four days before the shooting, but when I heard the news after we got home my heart sunk as I thought about the people I’d seen in the food court that afternoon. The sights and smells came flooding back and the happy people and their families all seemed suspended in my mind in a soon-to-be tragic tableau.
It just so happened, though Indiana had just passed the Constitutional Carry law on June 30th, I was not carrying that day having used her minivan with the child seats for her kids. The thought of being out playing with my grandkids seemed so innocent it didn’t even occur to me to take one. Luckily, I didn’t need it, but the news that came a few short days later hit so close to home I struggled to keep from breaking down into tears for what those people went through at that sweet little Midwestern mall.
There is no joy in “I told you so’s” surrounding a tragedy like this one. There is only the stinging reminder of why I had to in the first place.
Though my heart mourns at what happened and for the people affected by the loss of their loved ones and the twelve-year-old girl who is now scarred for life, I am grateful to the great people of Indiana for assuring the citizens have the right to carry and defend themselves, which, in this instance, spared more lives than were lost had they not.
