This past Saturday a snake came into our yard. It was a water moccasin so I had no choice but to kill it so that it was not a danger to my dogs and cats. The snake went under our porch which is lined with river stones and was next to our brick house.
I brought out an old pump BB gun to handle the job, not wanting to get too close to a poisonous snake. This gun is not accurate and there is no way to use the sights. You have to just sort of eyeball it to shoot anything. Further, I was trying to shoot through lattice work which surrounds the porch.
After missing the snake the first few shots, my wife, who was getting highly upset, screamed for me to get one of my real guns. I've recently purchased an AR-15 which is highly accurate and she has been to the range with me to see how well I shoot it. I told her that there was no way that I was going to fire a .223 round from 5 feet toward bricks and stones. She was really pissed. She then wanted me to get my .22. I refused that also and told her that the ricochet would probably kill us both.
She then wanted me to get one of my pistols (9mm, .40cal or .380) to shoot the snake and I again refused. She then said well do you have any type of gun you can use to kill this snake? I said, "Yes, this BB gun". She was really hot. Fortunately I shot the snake in the head on the next shot and killed it. However, she was still steamed that I wouldn't use one of my real guns to do the job. She still does not realize the danger of shooting a high powered round 5 feet into brick and rock. Regardless of how I tried to explain the danger of this, she still does not understand.
Then it hit me that there are probably a lot of people out there, inexperienced with firearms, that might have tried this. Thank god I was in the Marine Corp and also a cop for many years and participated on the pistol team.
I brought out an old pump BB gun to handle the job, not wanting to get too close to a poisonous snake. This gun is not accurate and there is no way to use the sights. You have to just sort of eyeball it to shoot anything. Further, I was trying to shoot through lattice work which surrounds the porch.
After missing the snake the first few shots, my wife, who was getting highly upset, screamed for me to get one of my real guns. I've recently purchased an AR-15 which is highly accurate and she has been to the range with me to see how well I shoot it. I told her that there was no way that I was going to fire a .223 round from 5 feet toward bricks and stones. She was really pissed. She then wanted me to get my .22. I refused that also and told her that the ricochet would probably kill us both.
She then wanted me to get one of my pistols (9mm, .40cal or .380) to shoot the snake and I again refused. She then said well do you have any type of gun you can use to kill this snake? I said, "Yes, this BB gun". She was really hot. Fortunately I shot the snake in the head on the next shot and killed it. However, she was still steamed that I wouldn't use one of my real guns to do the job. She still does not realize the danger of shooting a high powered round 5 feet into brick and rock. Regardless of how I tried to explain the danger of this, she still does not understand.
Then it hit me that there are probably a lot of people out there, inexperienced with firearms, that might have tried this. Thank god I was in the Marine Corp and also a cop for many years and participated on the pistol team.
