Part XII: A Nation Of Riflemen

March 25, 2003
5:55 PM CST

A little while ago, someone asked me the purpose of my website, other than as an outlet for my bad temper and hatred of socialists / Democrats / gun-controllers [multiple Redundancy Alert].

Not that I need another reason than that of course, but I realized that what’s going on here is that after reading my stuff, people have come to realize that they don’t have to be ashamed of wanting to own a gun, of wanting to protect their families, of wanting to protect themselves, and of understanding that the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting, buddy.

I haven’t really kept an accurate count, but over the past year well over a hundred people have written to me to ask my advice on buying and using their first gun. Almost all have written back to tell me what a blast it was, and how they’d got hooked (or re-hooked, in some cases) on shooting.

I found that there were three major themes running through the letters:

• people who wanted to protect themselves (mainly women, and many who had read this essay by The Mrs.);
• people who hadn’t shot for years, but who wanted to get back into it;
• and people who had come to realize, whether through my “Gun Thing” essays or via another source, that the Second Amendment is not some obscure and archaic paragraph in the Bill of Rights.

The Gratuitous Gun Pics section started off because I just felt like posting pictures of cool guns, and talking about them from a (relatively) non-technical perspective—more as old friends than as machines, how fine they look, how effective they are, and how much fun they are to shoot.

Nearly three hundred guns later, if I skip a GGP for one day, I get a storm of letters complaining about the missing picture. Good grief, when I suggested that I may have run out of guns to talk about, people whined louder than Florida Democrats in 2000.

Clearly, people have a continuing need to read about guns, to talk about them, and to be reassured that the nonsense emanating from VPC or the Brady Bunch is just that.

From that, I’ve stumbled across a worthy (albeit lofty) goal:

I want to turn America back into a nation of riflemen.

And I’m going to do just that, by golly, not by making big speeches or founding (yet another) gun-rights organization—we have enough of both of those.

Nor am I going to rebut the gun-controllers’ lies and fear-mongering by posting scholarly articles of rebuttal—enough people do that already, and better than I can.

What I am going to do is this: I’m going to subvert the gun-controllers’ agenda by helping people buy their first gun, by getting existing gun owners to buy more guns and to shoot more, and by getting people to teach their kids how to shoot.

Above all, people need to be reminded that a gun as a tool is a vital possession—you’ll hardly ever need one, but when you do need it, nothing else will suffice. And when it’s not needed, shooting is just plain fun.

And if I can only do all that one person at a time, then that’s what I’ll do, for the rest of my life if I have to.

Remember: We are a nation of riflemen. We slipped for a while, during the latter half of the twentieth century, and allowed the agenda of the statists and the fearful to take root in the national consciousness.

That’s all over and done with. If 9/11/01 showed us anything, it’s that we are all vulnerable, no matter where. And yes, I know that a gun won’t help you if someone crashes an airliner into your office building—but in times of danger, people need something to help them feel, well, not so helpless.

That’s what guns are for. And for whacking clay pigeons, Commies, targets, deer, terrorists, varmints, empty cans, and Goblins.

I know that this may sound like a lofty, or impossible goal for just one person. I don’t care, because it’s a worthy goal, and anyway, I always considered myself above despair—and if I’ve managed to persuade a hundred people to become gun owners inside a year, those hundred themselves need only persuade one other person, or teach one kid to shoot, and the tide will be irresistible.

So here’s the thing, in simple terms.

• If you don’t own a gun, you should learn how to shoot, and buy one.
• If you haven’t fired your gun for over a year, it’s time you got your fat ass back to the range.
• If your kids don’t know how to shoot, it’s time they learned.
• And if you don’t own at least one hundred rounds of ammunition per gun, you need to stock up (two hundred is better, and five hundred is optimal).

• April 15: Buy-A-Gun Day (and yes, I know that’s Tax Day)
• November 19: National Ammo Day (buy at least 100 rounds on that day)

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