I love to Clean Guns

Today was gun cleaning day.  Without exception, I clean each gun I use after each use, before I put it in the safe.  We do have a couple readily at hand for emergencies, like when predators ate in the hen house or in the quail or pheasant aviary. (Or in case a two legged predator finds his unlucky way into our home).  Those guns are only occasionally cleaned; often enough to prevent build-up that could lead to barrel bulge during firing, but not as obsessively as I clean the others.

I love to clean guns.  It is soothing and gratifying.  It is something I have done since childhood, taking pride =in the metal eventually becoming sleek and smooth.  The smell of the cleaning solvent in the air, the solid snick and click of moving parts, the feel of precisely machined metal under my hands all bring a deep feeling of relaxation.  It is a feeling tradition and pride, pride in the fact that I am a citizen of a country that allows me to own firearms, and pride that, as a woman, I am outside societal preconceptions of what a woman should do, be, and enjoy.

I am enjoying my place in a long succession of women both inside and outside my family who take pleasure in the shooting sports and hunting.  I clean guns that are a century old and were cleaned by other women long since dead.  I owe them for caring for these guns so lovingly.  I owe my daughter and my sons guns through which they can feel the tradition of our family as they use and clean them.

I smile to myself as I clean my guns, the banana scent of Hoppe's No. 9 bore cleaner in the air.  I stop and admire my husband as he cooks dinner for us, oblivious to the nontradional roles we are playing our.  He would rather cook than clean guns.  And I, well, I love to clean guns.