had been more intellectual than real.
Looking at a table full of guns made it all too real.
'Ideally, you would carry the biggest handgun you could--the larger and
faster the bullet, the more rounds, the better. That's a Glock .40
semiauto, the black plastic one. Next to it, that's a Taurus .357
revolver. These two have the most oomph. If you hit somebody solidly
in the torso with one round of either, they'll go down and be out of
the fight better than nine times out of ten.'
Ventura shook his head.
'I have to apologize. Doctor.
This isn't how you'd learn to shoot if I had time to teach you
properly, but we don't have time. We'll start with those.'
Morrison put on the headphones Ventura handed him.
'The hearing protectors are electronic,' Ventura said.
'You'll be able to hear fine until the gun goes off, but they'll cut
out the noise. These two pistols are particularly loud devices. If
you shoot one inside a car without protection, you can blow out an
eardrum.
'Hold it like so, both hands. Stand like this, arms out, in an
isoceles triangle. Grip is important, hold it tight. The sight
picture should look like this.' Ventura drew a picture on the table
with a felt-tipped pen.
'Line the post up inside the notch, put the target right on top. If
you need to shoot, you probably won't have time for a clean sight
picture, your attacker will be right in your face, so what you'll do
instead is point it like you would your finger, and index the whole
gun. Here.'
He handed Morrison the black plastic pistol.
'If you can see the back of the gun against the man's chest, that's
good enough for close range.'
'How close?'
'Inside twenty feet. In your case, probably more like six or eight
feet.'
'Okay.'
'Glock operates like this. Magazine in here, pull back the slide like
this to chamber a round, pull the trigger. No external safety. Point,
press. Don't jerk it. Try it, that target right in front of us. Shoot
it twice. It will kick some.'
The cardboard human torso and head was maybe a dozen feet away.
Morrison took a deep breath, pointed the Glock at the target, and
pulled the trigger. The damned gun almost jumped out of his hands, and
the second shot went off before he was ready, so it was probably a
little high ... He lowered the weapon and looked.
There were no holes in the target.
How could he have missed? It was right in front of him!
'First round was off to the right, second was way high and right. Try
the Taurus.'
Five minutes later, Morrison felt a sense of profound embarrassment. He
had fired ten shots from five guns.
Only two of the bullets had hit the cardboard, both of them almost off
