On Friday night while out drinking with some buddies at one of my favourite hangouts in Cebu, Philippines I was invited by my good friend Charlie to come shooting the next day. Charlie is a good friend and happens to be a cop. He graduated about 8 months ago and has been studying criminology and working the beat since then. Pretty tough job because his life expectancy is not that great now. Cebu is a pretty dangerous place and especially if you are on the front line as a cop. So Charlie said that all he has to offer me as a friend is to take me out shooting and let me use his pistol. I said its bullshit that is all he has to offer as I am just happy hanging out with him and the others; Nico, Rajib and Antony. But I went anyway ;-)
So the next day I was driven by my friend and brother in-law Tiny to pick up teh boys from the roughest part of the city - Colon and head out to Talamban. I was very hung over from the night before as it was the first time I had drunk in months and drinking shots of Flaming Ferraris was probably not the wisest thing to do! Shooting a gun with a headache was not sounding all that good.
Once we were at the range which took us an hour or so to get too just looking at the gun was making me nervous. I am not a gun man so have no massive desire to go and shoot things up. Holding the gun was making me shake a little but Charlie guided me through it and got me to relax and breathe deep. After the first clip of 7 bullets I was still nervous as hell. I did pretty good though and only missed one body shot. Charlie and the others were very generous to me as I got the most shots by far. I probably shot of 6 clips of 7 bullets each. By the end I was getting pretty confident, my nervousness had gone and I was fairly pumping that cardboard man full of bullets in rapid fire. Next time we will take a machine gun and rip it apart.
It was a fun day and actually somewhat got rid of my hangover. Charlie was stoked to be able to give me a unique experience and Nico, Antony, Tiny the gentle giant who's name has momentarily slipped my mind were stoked that they got to shoot a gun too.
Nico was branded the hitman as his first 3 shots were dead on the heart. Funny!
