Our thanks to Paul Elam for this. It should be another great Jamboree, I’m sorry I can’t attend personally. If you can make it, GO. It will surely be a memorable experience.

One of my strongest memories from the wonderful 2022 Jamboree is going with Paul and others to a gun store and firing range in Virginia. I hadn’t thought about bringing ID (such as a passport) but Paul was of the view that they might allow me onto the firing range if I simply told them I was British, and didn’t know ID would be required. It seemed wildly optimistic, but he turned out to be correct.

We were allowed to use one firearm from the store’s stock, and I opted for a .44 Magnum, the weapon of Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in one of my favourite films, Dirty Harry (1971). In one of the most famous scenes in film history, after an exchange of fire after a bank robbery, in which he kills one bank robber and the getaway driver, Harry looms menacingly over a black robber on the ground, pointing the Magnum at his head. He speaks:

“I know what you’re thinking: ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?”

Despite surrendering, the robber insists on knowing, and Harry jovially pulls the trigger, revealing the gun is empty.

Another four films in the series were made, ending with The Dead Pool (1988).

Among the other weapons I fired that day was Paul’s semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle, also his 9mm pistol. We had been given a perfunctory safety talk beforehand, and the man hadn’t mentioned a key feature of such pistols, that the slide (at the top of the weapon) flies back at considerable speed due to recoil. I was about to fire the weapon with my thumb behind the slide – the most natural position, it seemed to me – when Paul stopped me. Which explains why I still have a right thumb today.

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