I now know that there’s at least one gun store in Boulder. I have laid eyes upon it. It’s not even that far from the Naropa Institute. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, even in a place like Boulder, since society generally tolerates two kinds of people: those it wants to tolerate, and those that are armed. In any case, it’s good to know that there’s at least one good rally point in case of zombie attack, especially since if we hid out there liberal yuppie Boulder zombies probably wouldn’t even know where to look for us, whereas if we went to the tea house or the pottery store they’d find us in five minutes. There are lots of taxidermic deer and elk heads in the gun store, I assume because that’s what most people that buy guns around here are shooting at, unless they’re target shooting, and clay pigeons or plastic bottles don’t make very triumphant-looking trophies. But I wonder what they would have hanging in, say, a Russian gun shop–journalists?

I learned a lot about Boulder social mores the day I went to the gun store with friends to buy ammo. Leaving town afterward to head into the mountains, I discovered that it’s not considered littering to throw orange peels out your car window, since they’re biodegradable. I need to ask to see if that also applies to babies. When we finally got to our mountaintop shooting range, it was full of people blasting away. I wasn’t annoyed at all: I think it’s important for as many people as possible to be trained to shoot a gun. After all, there are a lot of shoplifters out there. And in that connection, I think it’s unfair that when shooting a plastic bottle you get less points for accuracy for a low shot that makes it wobble around and then fall over. I think you should get more.

Other popular targets at the range that day included an Obama/Biden campaign sign and a picture of Osama bin Laden. When the wind knocked the bin Laden sign over and the owners couldn’t find it for a couple of minutes, I think I came to see how bin Laden disappears so quickly into the rocks and hills. Later, coming down the mountain we got stuck behind an SUV with a Obama/Biden sticker moving about 15 mph. I wished that was the Obama sign that was bullet-ridden. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that a car being driven so timidly should encase an Obama supporter, but even health care reform wasn’t that slow. I didn’t let it irritate me overly though, consoled by the thought that guns and mountaintops don’t necessarily have an exclusive relationship.