It is a day when we celebrate the uniformed heroes who first won, and then preserved, our freedom.  It is significant that the first of those were the patriots of the American Revolution, who for the most part brought their own rifles and muskets to bear against the highly skilled and disciplined opposing force they defeated.

If you are a student of the gun, the name of Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC (ret.), will ring a bell with you. Few remember that the late Colonel was a history teacher at one time in his life. He found some letters written by a British soldier of the period, who had been horrified by the barbaric practice of the colonists actually aiming their rifles, to deadly and ultimately victorious effect.

Fast forward to the War Between the States.  Many historians maintain that man for man, the Confederate soldiers were deadlier on the battlefield than their Yankee counterparts, because being more likely to have been rural in background – farmers, hunters, shooters  — they brought with them skill at arms that they had learned long before donning the uniform.  It was after seeing this that a group of senior Union officers formed the National Rifle Association in 1871, to foster that skill for future combatants defending their nation.

World War I: such storied heroes as Alvin York and Herbert McBride were master riflemen before they joined up, and each left their battlefields strewn with enemy dead, one shot at a time.  Ditto the most highly decorated American soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy.  Vietnam?  Carlos Hathcock, a national champion rifle shooter well before he went overseas. In more current conflicts?  Think Chris Kyle, and more.

One of the things they, and so many others, fought and died for was the freedom to prepare their descendants to be the next Alvin York, the next Audie Murphy.

Many of us will celebrate part of Memorial Day on a shooting range.  I will be among them.

That gunfire will be the sound of the freedom America’s heroes fought and died for.

17 COMMENTS

  1. Early and thorough training and practice in firearms for use in both war and peace has resulted in the survival of many Americans so that they could produce future generations. I know that the firearms competence that some of my ancestors had has allowed me and many of my relatives to come into existence. More training and practice in firearms for every sane individual gives big returns in safer handling and optimal use.

  4. ” Many historians maintain that man for man, the Confederate soldiers were deadlier on the battlefield than their Yankee counterparts, because being more likely to have been rural in background – farmers, hunters, shooters — they brought with them skill at arms that they had learned long before donning the uniform”

    True enough but notice that any number of Union soldiers were better described as Westerners than as – New England? – Yankees. These Westerners, counting Ohio (Earps say) as part of the old Northwest, were a match or better for the run of the Southern soldiers.

  5. I wish I could put Mas’ article on the front page of The New York Times, or even on the opinion page, so more people would read it.

    I guess wisdom rests with the few, not the many. At least it is not buried, and can still be found.

  6. Mas:
    Thanks for your tribute to America’s war dead and their sacrifice. Polls report that only 45% of Americans know what the holiday is for. Most can’t tell the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans day. The trend I see while selling Forget-me-nots for the Disabled American Veterans and Poppies for the Veterans of Foreign Wars over the years, is that the over 50 crowd are the majority of donators. It seems like for the rest it is only a day off for a cookout, the JC Penny Memorial Day Sale, or the Ford Memorial Day Sales Event.
    Regards.

  7. Mas:

    What you have said is well said. I’ll be at the range tomorrow making the sound of Freedom, grateful for those who paid the price to make it possible.

    I was going to say something fancy.

    As I was writing this, I received a text from my friend and brother and business associate , SGT J F, USMC (ret). Flo asks – Don’t forget his brothers of 3rd Battalion, First Marines who died at the Battle of Fallujah.

    In honoring them, he would never mention how he almost was on that memorial wall as well, he survived that fight ; although he picked up about half a pound of foreign scrap metal.

    Ill just pass that along.

    • CPT Taggart,

      Our warriors who have brought the fight to our enemies the jihadists are my heroes, even though they are half my age. I just wish they had better civilian leadership. There were two battles for Fallujah, and I do not approve of how our military does house clearing. I believe our warriors’ lives are needlessly endangered in order to lessen “collateral damage.”

      I care more about the lives of American service men and women than I do about foreign non-combatants. If that makes me an ogre then I guess I am an ogre.

  8. I won’t be on the range tomorrow, too much work needs done by my hands. ButI WAS on the range a week ago, helping train about dozen fairy seasoned marksmen in the necessary skill and discipline to be fast AND accurate at out to 400 yards. We started out the two day clinic with the “Captain Morgan” shot… an eight inch round steel plate placed at 250 yards. Each shooter took their turn on a “first cold bore shot” each of the two mornings. Only one was able to make a sweet sounding CLANG both days. Nut, all of them improved greatly throug the clinic. Four hundred yards? Most were using “black and ugly” rifles firing the 5.56 NATO round. Their improvement was satisfying to see. We, the insructor team DID make a difference, but that was only because the shooters WANTED to improve. They did.

    Two weeks before that I was working with a crew of 20 Civil Air Patrol cadets, many of whom had never fired a rifle before, and NONE of whom had fired the rifles we had provided them for the two day clinic. Most were not even “on paper” when we started. By close Sunday ALL were on paper and grouping well, a few diong impressively well.

    It s VERY satisfying to be involved in such work. Most people once they pick up a rifle and begin to learn how to properly and safely use it, end up loving the sport.

    We used to be anation of riflemen. That has sadly gnoe by the boards over the past half century or more. Thatn needs to be restored. I believe our future depends upon that happening.

    • I worked with a friend of Mas’s, learning how to snap shoot a rifle. Prior to working with this guy, I took a rifle class, and flunked the final. At the start of the trial, I had to take two steps, and then put 5 shots in 5, six inch targets at 40 yards. I had to move twice between those five shots. If I had all the time in the world, I could get the rifle on target, and hit the shot. I could not do five of them in 20 seconds.

      After one day of training, I could snap up the rifle, and hit 4 inch targets at 100 yards in less than three seconds. I was amazed at how effective this guy’s techniques turned to to be. He trains National Guard folks, and was very, very good at his craft.

      • It also helped that I added an Aimpoint to the iron sights on the rifle. 50 year old eyes don’t work as well as much younger ones. Highly recommend Aimpoints for any middle aged folks out there who have rifles.

  9. Great article. As gun owners we all have a responsibility to educate the non gun owning public if we want to protect our 2A rights. I wrote an article this week about one of Col. Cooper’s ideas: Hoplophobia – an irrational fear of guns. You can read the article here https://sandiegocountygunowners.com/fighting-hoplophobia/ . Fear and bad gun control laws are the result of ignorance and we should all do what we can to fix that.

    • Joe D – Thanks for the linked article. While I agree with the majority of the points made in “Fighting Hoplophobia”, I disagree (somewhat) with the hoplophobia concept. In fact, hoplophobia is one area where I think Col. Cooper got it wrong. Which is strange for me since I agree so much with most everything else he wrote.

      True hoplophobia exists in some people who have been threatened or who have had loved ones killed by firearms. These people have transferred their fear of pain and suffering into an irrational fear of firearms. For example, I believe that Gabby Giffords, and her husband, were turned into true hoplophobles by the 2011 attack that injured her and killed several other innocent people.

      However, Jeff Cooper’s term is often used to explain general anti-gun political bias. Your linked article uses it that way. I think this is wrong and dangerous. It paints all anti-gun people as suffering from mental disease. It claims that the tens of millions of people with anti-gun bias (around the world) are all irrational and suffering from a mental phobia condition. I don’t believe this for one second. Furthermore, it is dangerous because we can never understand their true motivations if we just dismiss them all as mental fruitcakes.

      Most anti-gun people develop their bias because (1) they are mentally pre-programmed with a left-wing worldview and (2) they have been exposed to huge amounts of anti-gun propaganda via Hollywood, the education system and the media.

      As I have noted before, a segment of the population is subconsciously programmed with high levels of trust in their fellow man. This leads to a “blank slate” kind of worldview in which people are viewed as uniformly good, in their native state, and do evil only because they are conditioned to do so by exterior environmental and economic factors. In other words, people are good and it is the world that is bad. This generates a political view that the evil in the world can only be eliminated by means of strong central-government control system that will create a “safe space” (AKA Nanny State) for mankind to dwell in. Leftists continually scour the environment looking for negative influences that they can eliminate. The existence of weapons, at both the individual citizen level and at the National/international levels is one such negative influence. In addition, leftists believe that people will be easier to control and, therefore, utopia will be easier to create if the population is disarmed.

      So, general anti-gun bias does not come from hoplophobia. I would expect that the number of true hoplophobles is relatively small. It mostly comes from the subconsciously “trust” setting which, due to genetics and environment, influence a significant segment of the population to adopt the left-wing political mindset.

  11. History, indeed, on Memorial Day to remember and honor all who have fought for our Freedoms.

    In watching a GREAT piece by Mike Lowe, ‘How Booze Built America’, I learned some obscure facts of said history and raised a glass to our Founding Fathers. Seems many imbibed a particularly favored Rum Punch prior to the battle of Lexington & Concord! Alcohol and Firearms? Who knew?! Paul Revere? Sloshed out of his skull by the time he was captured.

    Having been born just outside of Boston, I found myself reminiscing of the summers walking along the same cobblestone as those Patriots, along Paul Revere and the Adams’ homes. Amazing Americans indeed. (Liquid courage included!) So, raise your glasses, and cover your a**es!

  12. In the wake of our Memorial Day commemoration of 2019 during which we celebrated and honored the ultimate sacrifice of armed Americans who gave up their lives in defense of precious liberty from 1775 to current day, let’s take a moment to reflect upon the grim fate of gunless Chinese demonstrators thirty years ago when the brutal ChiCom tyrants in Beijing made a conscious decision to crush protesting dissenters under the treads of People’s Liberation Army tanks.

    Look hard at the stark photos accompanying the timely article linked below to gain a new understanding or refresh a previous understanding of why all totalitarian regimes demand that their societies be both fun-free and gun-free.

    As you read the riveting article and gaze at the gripping photos, ask yourselves if American politicians and American industry leaders of 2019 who eagerly engage in hand jive, high five, kissy face commerce with Beijing’s modern day bloodthirsty killers are going to step up to be resolute, stalwart defenders of the Second Amendment in the USA in the months and years ahead? I doubt it. I seriously doubt it. We American gun owners are on our own. Our long term destiny is most likely in our own hands. We, and we alone, will likely determine the nature of private gun ownership rights that we will leave to our beloved children and grandchildren.

    Kudos to Business Insider magazine for daring to run this hard hitting article about the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 that merits every patriotic American’s attention in 2019.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/tiananmen-square-2015-6?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=military_select

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