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Fred's
Columns
THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN - Oct 20 issue SGN
“UN Day” [Oct 24] staring us in the face, our UN flag flapping in sun-dappled blue on the pole out front, we continue consideration of the rifleman concept with this email:
Sir, I had always assumed that I was a pretty good rifle shot as I'm sure most Americans do.
I started reading your column and got intrigued wondering if I could pass the AQT test that you mention in your column. I really thought that I could shoot a perfect score first try, as I do quite a bit of long range shooting and had even shot a group recently under three inches at 500 yards with an open sighted M1- Garand (from a bench rest).
So I ordered one of your Rifleman packages and what a surprise. I wasn't a rifleman, I was a cook!
Five tries later I finally broke 200 and what a thrill. You have opened up new doors for me in the realization that I wasn't the rifleman I thought I was, and I just wanted to say thanks. SC, email
How many rifle-owners think they can shoot them ‘pretty good’?
Or at least, well enough? (To defend self or family.)
SC’s email is worthy in pointing out that, while you may think you are a good shot with a rifle, and maybe even think of yourself as a rifleman, it never hurts to be sure.
After all, it’s not how well you think you shoot, it’s how well you can shoot.
And that a few minutes spent on the firing line, seeing how you can do on an established military course of fire, will either confirm you are good, or, and this is very important, let you see how far short you actually fall of the needed standard. It gives you a baseline of your present skill level, and, as you reshoot the course, a concrete measure of how fast your shooting performance is improving.
It has been said here before:
The Rifleman premise is that anyone can be a rifleman. It really is a universal skill. And if you can be a rifleman, in the battle for freedom, you should be a rifleman. You have the time, and there is no excuse...
And there is certainly no excuse if, after firing the course, whether you qualify as a Rifleman, or fail to qualify, and become one of the ‘cooks’, you don’t turn to the “Guide” that comes with the targets and read it through because, like Jimmy Carter, you - when it comes to shooting - always ask yourself: “Why not the best?” (Mentally picturing his smiling face is enough to motivate normal people to shoot better.)
Never forget the Rifleman standard. That 500-yard “Rifleman’s Quarter-Mile” is part of your heritage. It’s part of the tradition that started way back at the foundation of this country.
That the tradition has been allowed to fall into disuse; that people have allowed themselves to be distracted by ‘the easy life’ and forgotten freedom - none of that makes any difference.
However neglectful of the tradition you’ve been in the past, it’s never too late to return to your roots, to the history, to the power the tradition gives you in protecting what you want to protect: Your freedom, your way of life, your family, maybe even your country.
And it may be more important for you to come back to it now than ever before.
At least in the past, people were better grounded in reality, without the constant droning ‘big lie’ media singing their siren song “be like everyone else, relax, let government do it, trust govt..., black is white, white is black” etc, etc.
As part of a definite minority, soon to be an oppressed minority, tagged by the government with permits, inspections, centralized files, etc., you’ve got to be concerned, got to wake up.
NOW, while you have the time, get your friends to the range shooting; get them qualified as riflemen; get them into the freedom fight, for it is a fight, now, in the ‘soft’ stage, just as much as it will be if it gets to the hard stage. And get in the fight, now. Write your reps one-minute letters, get people to vote for the right people...get ‘em fired up!
It’s a fight you have to win. It’s a fight that you win easier, if you fight now rather than later.
A “rifleman” - a man skilled in the use of a rifle - in France or Germany, or any other foreign country - is a defender of the state.
An ‘American Rifleman’ won a revolution to become a defender of liberty. Those liberties are all right there in the constitution. Defense of the constitution is defense of liberty.
An ‘American Rifleman’ knows this context in which he operates, and is alert to any threat to his liberty, from any source, and is prepared to defend against that threat, if need be.
A rifleman knows that the ‘soft’ crisis, the time NOW when voting, letters to reps, and education of others, is the key opportunity to defend his liberties. Win now, and never worry about later.
The rifleman will work to win the ‘soft’ crisis so that he won’t have to fight the ‘hard’ crisis, when his rifleman skills are needed and will be used.
But if the ‘hard’ crisis comes, the rifleman will choose his rifle and his tactics to minimize his risk and maximize the risk to the other side. That will usually mean selecting a .30 cal rifle and working at 300 to 500 yards, far outside his opponents’ effective range.
A rifleman will start now to develop his skills for firing fast, accurate shots, and bring along some buddies to ‘rifleman’ status, so he has a team with some backup for any crisis. The team will work hard during the ‘soft’ crisis to avoid the ‘hard’ crisis.
The American Rifleman: defender of Liberty. You need to be one. Your friends need to be one.
LIBERAL-FREE ZONE?
With the WTC attack, the drumbeat begins: “we’re gonna have to give up rights for safety.”
In that spirit I propose that one right we give up is to have to associate with liberals. You know, those folks forever against missile defense, a strong military, and our personal defense with guns.
Before you protest the idea, understand that there’s few liberals who wouldn’t secretly (and some not so secretly) want to get rid of you (assuming you are a conservative, and not just a gunowner - but they’ll get rid of you liberal gun owners, too).
I can agree with that idea - to get rid of all conservatives - so long as everyone understands that, in their worship for big government and curtailment of individual liberties, liberals are direct philosophical descendants of the first enemies of freedom in this country, the Tories, or “Kings men,” who fought against liberty - and were the ‘conservatives’ of their day.
After the War, these people were quickly hustled out of the country in a no-nonsense fashion. Our freedom-loving forbears did that, and never regretted it. And we had a good country for generations.
Back then, when people seem to be geniuses of common sense compared to today’s sheep, no one thought it made a lick of sense to have enemies of freedom moving freely about in a nation that had just fought and bled for freedom.
So, a “liberal-free” zone is not such an original idea at all. And it’s time to bring it back before it’s too late.
I wouldn’t miss them at all. No more kids thrown out of school for pointing fingers “like a gun”, or drawing a picture of a gun; no more persecution of the Boy Scouts; maybe the newspapers would report the news, instead of liberal propaganda; maybe AIDS could be eradicated; maybe what a man earns, more of it, could go into his pocket instead of being grabbed by liberal big government; maybe men would marry women, and not other men.
Post-WTC, liberals are still out there, all over the tube, now working the ‘security in trade of freedoms’ idea. Anything to advance their agenda.
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