Learning to feel at home on the range

It's a cold and cloudy Sunday morning as I pull myself out of bed around 7:30 a.m. and get myself dressed. Normally the "day of rest" is used for just that; rest. On this particular morning of Aug. 19, however, I am heading down to the Silver Spur Shooting Range to cover one of several gun courses being taught by Silver Spur Outfitters in cooperation with Sgt. John Russo, who has been in law enforcement for 25 years. Having started in 2013, this is the fifth year that Spur Outfitters has held this training.

In the, nearly, 32 years that I have been on this Earth I have never fired a pistol, at...