My first stop in the tactical world was Arizona’s Gunsite Academy, which describes itself as “Disneyland for gun lovers.” The 3,200-acre facility includes a number of indoor and outdoor simulators where students are trained in how to stop a home invasion or engage an assailant in a parking lot or perform emergency medical care in the field. “This activity is considered … off-mainstream,” one of my fellow students, an orthopedist from Indiana, told me. Plus there could be social repercussions. We didn’t want information falling into the hands of terrorists or other bad actors, he explained. After a while, a decorated US Army veteran named Eric Dorenbush gathered us into a circle and gave a short safety briefing-don’t point your barrel at anything you’re not willing to destroy, act as if every gun is loaded-then asked us not to share any images or videos on social media. Then I parked in a field ringed by trees whose bark was scarred by stray bullets.Ī handful of men had already arrived, and they were loading ammunition into their magazines as the morning birds chittered overhead. I followed a pickup down a gravel road and over two cattle guards to the far end of the property. On a misty November morning just after sunrise, I pulled up to a shooting range in central Texas with a borrowed AR-15 and a few hundred rounds of dubious-quality Russian ammunition that I’d ordered over the internet.
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