"Protection from what? Zee Germans?"

It's been a pretty good month at the office, so I thought I'd take some of my hard-earned cash and roll on down to the local armaments retailer (Carter's Country, in this case) for some constitutionally protected cold steel. I knew I wanted a gun chambered for the .40S&W cartridge, but that's about all I knew. The staff at Carter's Country were helpful and friendly, and they helped me pick this little fella: It's a Smith & Wesson Model SW40VE. It has a black polymer frame (polymer is just like plastic, only with a 1200% markup), a stainless steel slide and a 4-inch barrel. The clips -- two were provided -- hold 14 rounds each, thanks to the expiration of the assault weapons ban. But as Biggie Smalls said:

Don’t fill them clips too high Give them bullets room to breathe

Push the magazine release, and the gun dumps the magazine on the floor as smoothly as can be, just like in the movies. My new manifestation of the Second Amendment was packaged in a handsome blue carry case with foam padding. It also came with a Master gun lock, rendering the gun useless and inoperable to anyone without bolt cutters. The lock was "free," by which I mean "mandated in a gajillion-dollar settlement involving one or more idiots and a battalion of ambulance chasers." After I picked out the gun, I was compelled by an Act of Congress to fill out a form so that Carter's Country could check my background. Apparently, the federales are real sticklers for procedure; in the space for "Country of citizenship," I wrote "United States," stupidly thinking that would be sufficient. The guy handed me back the form and told me to write "of America." Okay. The lady behind the counter called a number, read off my name, date of birth and all that, ran my credit card, and I walked out the door. Here's the weird part: I felt...nervous, somehow. Conspicuous. Like I was doing something wrong. Well that's bullshit. Kiss my ass, Sarah Brady. Fortunately, I has also picked up 100 rounds of Winchester ammunition so I could try out my new piece and get Sarah Brady out of my mind. I headed to American Shooting Centers in George Bush Park and fired off every round I had. It's got a tough, long trigger pull, so the gun was wiggling around far too much while I was firing it. Accordingly, I wasn't a great shot today. I'll have to lubricate the trigger mechanism a little and put a couple hundred more rounds through the gun, to break it in. I'll be working on that in the next few weeks. But hot damn, it was fun.