A Smith and Wesson 38 Special
I have been around guns – rifles, pistols, and shotguns – all my life and some stand out in my library of memories. The first one was a Smith and Wesson 38 Special. It was Daddy’s FBI pistol, and it was always either in his holster on his hip or on his dresser, and it was always loaded.
Daddy always said that more people were killed with “unloaded” guns than with ones they knew had ammo. He told me at an early age, that his gun was always loaded, so I never touched it.
He always said when dealing with guns to never point a gun at something you didn’t want to kill and to always consider what was behind your target if you shot. In my many years, I have followed that advice and have never had an accident or even came close.
Daddy’s Smith and Wesson revolver had a 4-inch barrel as I recall, and it held six bullets. If he shot at somebody six times, there would have been six bullets in his chest. He was an amazing shot.
I remember him bringing back paper targets from Quantico where the Special Agents of the FBI trained each year. The paper torso was filled with a tight group of holes at the heart.
In those days, FBI agents didn’t fire a barrage of shots with a semi-automatic pistol, they took one step forward as they drew their pistols and fired, all in one motion- and they didn’t miss
Sometimes, for practice, Daddy would slow down on a curvy WV mountain road and shoot groundhogs with his revolver while the car was still in motion.
He kept the same pistol until he retired. He never shot anybody, but if he had ever shot at anybody, they would have been dead.
