The first feel-good story to come out of this year’s Olympics is that of 19 year old Ginny Thrasher, who won the first gold medal of the games. Thrasher, you see, won her medal in a very un-PC sport: shooting. Specifically, she won in 10 meter air rifle, which uses compressed air or CO2 instead of the burning gunpowder we normally associate with guns. No one with a clue would conflate such shooting with army snipers or criminal murderers.
Unfortunately, we are awash in people lacking in clue, to judge by the obnoxious responses shared with the world by anti-gun types. People are loudly proclaiming that there’s “irony” in this, as if a 19 year old girl’s incredible skill with an air rifle has any relation to the gun violence that the Left blames on America’s “gun culture” instead of on radical Islam, the War on Drugs, mental illness, sensationalizing by the mass media, ill advised “gun-free zones,” or counterproductive restrictions on gun rights. They just have to cloud this amazing, world-record achievement by horning into her moment with their “look at me I’m so clever” bits of unoriginal snark and callousness.
One friend recently told me that he caught a torrent of hate on his Facebook page after he posted a congratulatory message for the young woman. This mirrors many news reports of social media going non-linear over this young woman’s success in a sport they can’t fathom anyone enjoying.
We can safely presume the political leanings and geographical concentrations of these folks. They remain either blissfully unaware or contemptuously dismissive of the reality of the “rest of” America. It is estimated that 25-33% of Americans own guns or have one in their household. The current estimates (though accurate figures are notoriously hard to determine) is that there are 350 million guns owned by Americans. That last figure has increased by about 100 million in the last decade or so, making President Obama the greatest gun salesman in history.
Millions of Americans hunt with firearms each year. In many parts of the country, opening day of deer season is a school holiday. Millions more shoot for sport i.e. at targets. The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation, with millions of members. A shotgun rack in the back window of a pickup truck is a “country” stereotype for a reason. Firearms have been passed down from parents to children for as long as this country has existed. In fact, America’s revolution began when the colonists resisted an attempt at confiscation of their firearms.
This is the real America. Guns are woven into the nation’s history, and they are part of what has made and makes America unique in the world. Yes, America has a gun culture that no other nation has, but, lets not forget, America also has a culture of individual rights that no other nation has. That culture of individual rights, coupled with the premise of limited government, produced the greatest nation in the history of the world.
By contrast, we have a segment of society that loathes guns and would in the blink of an eye disarm the hundred million Americans who currently own or have access to guns. Many of these people have never been in the presence of a gun, let alone handled or fired one. The language they use to discuss guns demonstrates an ignorance that, when considered in conjunction with the absolute certainty they’re right about disarming their fellow americans, is grotesque. Here, let me suggest something to all you gun-haters: If you want to take away my rights, at least have the courtesy and intellectual honesty to learn something before you open your mouths and spout ignorance.
A NY Daily News columnist recently fired an AR-15 in an effort to educate himself. He reported that it “felt like a bazooka” and “sounded like a cannon.” I do wonder how he might know what a bazooka felt like (but, given that bazookas are recoilless, I suspect that the author was being hyperbolic rather than informative), and I also doubt he’s ever heard a cannon.
I’ve fired AR-15s. And AK-47s. And rifle rounds ranging from .22LR to .300 Win Mag to .45-70 Government. And pistol rounds ranging from .22LR to .44 Mag to .50 AE. And shotgun loads ranging from .410 to 12 gauge magnum. I’m no expert shooter or marksman, nor am I widely versed in firearms, but I’ve had enough experience to laugh at the columnist’s assertions. An AR-15 has a trivial amount of recoil. I can (and have) put the butt of the rifle against my groin and fire a few shots with no ill effect. By contrast, a 3″ magnum rifled slug fired from a 12 gauge shotgun hurts. A few such shots, and you’ll wake up with an aching shoulder the next day.
The News columnist was widely mocked in social media, but I saw no back-down or admission of hyperbole from his quarters. His description:
The recoil bruised my shoulder, which can happen if you don’t know what you’re doing. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.
This is a man I have nothing in common with. And, not just because I think I’m somehow “tougher” than he is. This is a man who lives and wants to live in an America that I neither recognize nor want anything to do with. His ilk want a soft and squishy nation, one without any hard edges, one where he and his are, like toddlers, protected from hard edges by endless cushions put in place by the government. His ilk don’t want edginess, either. Anyone who actually speaks outside the well-defined lines of political correctness and social justice nowadays is set upon by slavering hordes of Twitter hounds. Their world is the generation of pussies that Clint Eastwood called out in a recent interview in Esquire. While I’m not with Eastwood in his leaning toward voting for Trump, I agree that Trump is “onto something.”
There is the America that is proud of its heritage, proud of its fierce independence, proud of being the beacon of liberty for countless people around the world. Proud of its “greatest generation,” proud of the melting pot, proud of the American Way, proud of the protestant work ethic, proud of the fact that anyone can achieve the American Dream through personal effort and perseverance. Proud of self-reliance and proud of the ties to family and community. That’s the America that is proud of its guns.
Then there’s the America that embraces self-loathing. Oh, not at an individual or personal level – those folks never think of anything at an individual level. The self-loathing is for America, for their home land and, because they think collectively, for their fellow Americans. That’s the America that divides people into groups and sets those groups against each other. That’s the America that focuses on every bad thing that’s ever been done by or in America, that ignores all the good America has done for the world, that ignores all the horrors that other nations have inflicted on their people, that cherry-picks only the bad in American and only the good elsewhere, that loathes fellow Americans more than people who hate America and want to do her harm. That’s the America that would use government force to subjugate fellow citizens, strip them of their rights, take from them the fruits of their labors, and force them to live according to a narrow and undesired set of rules. That’s the America that hates guns.
Hate is and has always been a powerful motivator. Tyrants throughout history have risen to power by fanning the flames of hate, by appealing to basic tribal instincts and telling people that the “others” are the cause of all their troubles. Hate fuels the self-loathing America, it fuels the sanctimonious pricks who couldn’t simply be happy for a teenage girl winning a gold medal at the Olympics, who just had to piggyback and taint her success with their social commentary. Hate is the accusation they hurl at everyone who disagrees with them while they wallow in it themselves, utterly self-unaware. They hate pride, or at least the sort of pride that extols the virtues of America’s history. They’re proud of themselves, and of those who they deem worthy (from whom they demand fealty and unvarying compliance), but never of the Americans with whom they disagree, or of America herself. They elevate people who share that selfish and egotistical form of pride.
Does all this sound angry? Absolutely. I am angry. I am angry that people who presume to know better than everyone else and presume that their better knowledge confers them the right to impose their will upon everyone else can’t simply revel in the amazing achievement of a young American woman. I am angry that these people have to make everything about everything about themselves.
I’ve had it with the smug, self-important jackasses who cannot fathom that tens of millions of law-abiding Americans can and do own and use guns responsibly and to the benefit of themselves, their fellow Americans and their country. And I’ve had it with people who can’t look at a wonderful, feel-good story about a successful and inspirational young American woman without forcing their agendas into her story.
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Have to say that Mr. Eastwood’s most recent Esquire interview made my day.
I had had it a long time ago…..