Entry 23
My day started off with the usual routine. I was rather tired so afterward I went to lay back down. I decided to give the gun safe another few attempts before I got into bed. On my very first try it worked perfectly and I opened it! I cannot put into words how excited I was. All those hours and finally it was open!
I removed the gun and held it. For a few moments I almost felt safe again. After those few moments reality set it. I had seen guns on TV and even shot a few, but I really do not know much about them. This was very clear as I looked at the gun and I really had no idea what to do with it. It looked like a revolver, with the big cylinder which holds the bullets. But, this one did not have a hammer or a safety. My safe feeling quickly fell apart when I realized what little I did know about revolvers did not seem to apply to this gun. I abandoned my nap and started to try to understand the gun.
It took quite a bit of time to finally work out how the gun worked. The fear of it going off really made thing slow, not so much for fear of hurting someone but the noise it would cause. I could see there were rounds loaded only because I had noticed the bullets in the cylinder from the front. There was one sliding button on the top of the gun where I figured the hammer should be so I avoided that as I suspected it was just some unique hammer design. After some time examining the gun I found the only other button was a switch for a small laser sight on the gun. The laser sight was awesome to discover since I really do not even know how to aim the gun. From video games I know there are two ridges on the back sight and the single ridge on the front of the gun goes between them. The question is do you aim so the target is right above the sights? Or, do you aim so the sights slightly cover what you are shooting for? The laser means I can put the red glowing dot where I want the bullet to go and not have to worry about where to aim with the normal sights.
After discovering the laser sight, I still had not figured out how to open up the cylinder or what the button at the top did. Finally, I tried the sliding button where the hammer should be and the gun opened up. I then pried out the five bullets in the gun so I could safely work with the gun. I realized the round thing holding the bullets looked remarkably like the cylinder of the gun. I figured it must be a clip for the gun and the bullets did line up with the holes in the cylinder. I fiddled with it trying to understand how the clip fit when you shut the gun without much success. However, when I was trying to get the clip to fit, I accidentally bumped the rod sticking forward from the cylinder and realized it pushed the bullets out of the cylinder. I put a round in and used it to knock out the bullet. I realized at this point that was how to take out the bullets without having to pry them out. When I picked up the clip to try to get it to fit again it got caught on a blanket for a moment so I twisted it. All the bullets fell out and I realized you just used it to put the bullets in. I put them back in the clip and then pushed it into the gun, twisted the knob and it loaded all five bullets at once and it came free so I could shut the gun. I spent awhile longer trying to find a safety, but other than simply not having bullets in it I cannot see one.
After figuring out how the gun worked I spent the rest of the day practicing. I remember watching a show on military training where they said repeating actions can help you perform it in a stressful situation when you would otherwise bumble through it or freeze up. First, I practiced loading the gun by hand. I would use the thing to empty out the bullets from the gun and then reload each bullet by hand. Using the clip was pretty easy and fast but it actually took a bit of practice to make sure all five would slip in at the same time. I closed the gun a few times with bullets, but mostly I would just empty the bullets out. The lack of a safety worried me while I was handling it. After I had all the motions for loading and changing rounds out, I practiced sighting the gun. I would raise the gun and hit the laser button; even having checked the gun ensuring it was empty I was still too scared to pull the trigger just in case. It actually made me wonder if I really knew how to use the gun.
I still have no idea if I can actually fire the gun. If I have missed the safety I could need the gun and go to use it and end up dead cause I was on safe. I also have no idea why it does not have a hammer to cock the gun. I wish I could fire it, just once, to make sure it would work. I just hope I won't need it.
