For several decades, the Aliens of the planet Reality had been watching earth. The inhabitants of Reality had much in common with the people of earth, but were especially fond of a place called the United States. The beings in the US seemed to have everything at their fingertips from food to water, and even though their technology was crude, they were getting better.
The problem that Reality faced was that they were very much like humans and needed water to survive, and they were running out. They discussed many places on earth where they could attack and take over water sources. This would require them to enslave the population.
After much consideration, they decided the US was the place to attack. They identified major cities known as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angles, Houston, and Detroit. They liked the fact that the majority of the populations were close to the coasts, making them easier to control. For years, especially those in the cities, had given up what they referred to as “rights” in exchange for feeling safer by having their leaders take care of them. One of the biggest things they gave up was what they called “guns”, hand held machines that fired projectiles that could kill other people. Their Army used them to fight wars; their police used them to fight what they called crime. But most interesting was that the average person could actually have one. In that laid the problem.
The leadership of Reality realized that if they were to just whip in with flying saucers, people would panic, and many of them would be armed. So instead they decided on a plan that would be used to infiltrate the US. Thousands of aliens from Reality morphed into beings that looked and acted just like humans. They would go in small groups to form sleeper cells. Their primary goal was to study the reactions of humans and how they would likely respond to an invasion. One of the key objectives was to understand how the average gun owner trained.
The first group of three landed in a place called York PA. They quickly got an apartment and took jobs in the community and started building relationships. One of the reasons they liked York was that it was close to Harrisburg, Baltimore, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. Another was that it seemed to have a massive concentration of gun owners. The people in the area were known to carry small guns called handguns on them. It seemed that many of them also owned but did not carry around what they called shotguns and rifles.
One of the aliens known on Reality as Gavitch noticed that even though the people carried handguns almost all of the time, they were really fixated on training with the rifles. Much of the training seemed to come from their military, which worked in groups. During conversations with the other Aliens, Gavitch agreed with them that you should know how to use every tool you have. But they just could not figure out why so much more time was spent on working as a team with rifles instead of being by yourself with a pistol.
Gavitch, a communications expert, became aware of several “gun” forums. He joked that many on these forums seemed much more concerned with collecting guns than actually learning to be proficient with them. In another observation, he reported that many of the ones that seemed to be into training were actually shooting pieces of cardboard in response to a buzzer or whistle. They took much pride in something called “splits” and liked to have the holes in the target as close together as possible. This was notable since Gavitch was also studying police reports leaked to him by one of the other aliens who was able to get them while working as a dispatcher. They looked over shootings all over the country involving police. None of them started from any noise, much less a buzzer or whistle. They all seemed to start with movement. The holes were not close together on the bodies either, in spite of the training.
The crew got a subscription to every gun magazine they could find. The pages were full of everything for guns that you could imagine. Many highlighted training that again showed people standing still shooting stationary pieces of cardboard. They just shook their heads and laughed.
After making friends with gun owners in the area, all of the aliens bought a particular model of handgun called a 1911. This was on the advice of several people on the forums who said that if they wanted to learn about “gun fighting” that they needed a gun fighters gun, and the 1911 was it.
Their local friends took them to the range one Saturday. The crew was excited because they thought they would finally get some training based on what they had been reading in the police reports and about stories they had heard from regular people who had been in shootings. They figured that the reason the police had not done more realistic training was that their leaders did not understand their threats. Finally, they were going to train with armed citizens who did not have to train hundreds or thousands of people, and instead could form a small group to study what actually happened during a gun fight and use that knowledge to train realistically. Sadly, they were mistaken.
Once they got out to a farm owned by one of Gavitch’s coworkers, they put some beer cans out at about 25 yards and just started shooting. The property owner missed with all seven shots out of his 1911 and said that he needed some new sights. They got to shoot but did not learn much.
Later that night Gavitch reported the following to his command-
“The earthlings are nice; however they seem more interested in owning and carrying their weapons than practicing in such a way that will help them during a real attack. They treat the carrying of their firearm like other hobbies they seem to enjoy like golf and football. Our plan is to continue to study the reports of actual shootings, and look into something known as force on force training. Basically, it is done with bullets that will not kill you. You actually get to shoot another person as he attacks you. We can accomplish this at home. Instead of sending a mass attack right away, I propose that we come back as gang members, drug dealers, and other criminals, and kill as many police and citizens as we can one at a time by training our agents realistically.”
