A Study in Contrasts.

I, The Chuckmeister, was asked by a good friend recently why I'm so strident on the subject of gun rights and the 2nd Amendment.  Especially, my friend asked, when society in general is moving away from owning  and using guns.

The answer was easy.  I bang this drum incessantly exactly because society is in a dangerous and unwarranted transition.  One that continues to be fueled by a well-funded, Leftist propaganda campaign run by those dedicated to all-out confiscation. 

And in an effort to paint a more vibrant picture of my thinking on this subject, I offered up the following:

It was just gleefully reported by the MainStreamMedia that 2 male students at a New Jersey Township high school were suspended for three days of school, plus a weekend detention.

What did these kids do?  They posted a picture on Snapchat of themselves during their visit to a local shooting range.  They were off campus, during non-school hours, on a non-school day.  It was a legal gun range, they used legal guns, shot them legally and there were zero complaints from anyone.

Accept from their school.  Its administration believed their  "zero tolerance" policy against guns extends to all aspects of its students lives.  Whatever they're doing, wherever they are, anytime and any place.   

How ironic, I thought.  And alarming.  And sad.  And deserving of a flashback or two from my storied youth.  

I was born and raised in what those on either coast might call "flyover country."   I lived in a small town, a county seat, right in the middle of the country.  God's country, it's been called.  

And it was one of the very safest.  I recall being told back then that nobody locked their doors at night.  Why?  Everybody is armed, I was told, so nobody would be stupid enough to break in!  Makes sense, right?

And no one did.  There hadn't been a murder there in more than 100 years.

I used to tag along with my Dad and Grandfather as they went hunting and fishing and camping when I was only 5 or 6.  They taught me to bait a hook, pitch a tent, start a fire, nock an arrow and shoot a gun before I started grade school.  

My 8th birthday present was a nice, new Stevens .22 single-shot, bolt-action rifle.  Just perfect for a small kid just starting out.  Within weeks I was hitting the bullseye with every shot.

I started hunting quail and rabbit with Dad by the time I was about 9.  Duck and goose hunting came later that winter.  And I joined in on my first deer hunt when I was eleven years old.  I took a deer that next year and every year thereafter for the next few.    

Just like most of the folks I knew.

I gravitated to firearms from the beginning as did many of my friends.  I found them interesting and intriguing and liberating and empowering and equalizing.  I found a buddy and mentor in Kenney Frost, the owner of our local "Army/Navy Store."  He bought and sold and fixed and created firearms of all types.  He took me under his wing and made me an apprentice gunsmith by the time I was 11.  

By the following year I was helping him build custom sporting rifles for his discriminating clients, with a primary emphasis on the smaller "varmint" calibers suitable for coyotes and prairie dogs and such (.220, .222, .22-250, .243, .25-06, .270, etc).  And that would include finding and fitting barrels, actions, custom stocks and telescopic sights together into a cohesive, beautiful, finely-tuned and high-performing whole, and then finishing them so fine and so well that they shined like a diamond in a goat's ass.

I also built one for myself about this time.  And of interest, I was asked by my 8th grade teacher to bring it to "show and tell" day at school (in view of today's hysterical anti-gun climate, let that sink in!).  So while others were displaying pictures from their summer vacations, I was showing off my shiny new .270 Winchester, hand-built varmint rifle. 

(A couple of folks on this distribution list were in class that day.  Let's see if they remember...) 

It was a truly special rifle.  I used a Fabrique Nationale Mauser magnum bolt action receiver chambered in good, all-around .270 Winchester; 28" Bueller Timken Bearing Steel heavyweight bull barrel; Jaeger trigger, ACE trigger shoe; Lyman Wolverine 10x scope with Redfield, Jr. helium-filled mounts; and a Reinhardt Fagen Circassion Fiddleback walnut beavertail forend stock.  All hand-fitted, hand-assembled, action glass beaded, free-floating barrel and hand-finished into a gorgeous 13.5 pound beauty!  

And, oh yeah, it was capable of placing a hand-loaded 110 grain Sierra Openpoint bullet, propelled by 50 grains of #4350 Dupont powder, using Norma cases and Peters primers, inside the area of a playing card at 600 yards!  Time after time.  Clearly, being a no-good varmint was a bad idea anywhere in my zip code.

My fellow students loved my presentation.  So did the teacher.  I received an "A."   One of the few I received, as I recall...

By the way, I went on to win numerous rifle, pistol and shotgun competitions throughout my life.  I had, and may still have, the all-time high score on Fort Leonard Wood's rifle range (996 - 1,000).  And I came within "this much" of qualifying for the 1968 Olympic pistol team.  For Germany.  Yeah.  It's a long story.  Maybe I'll tell you sometime.  

Anyway, that could have been fun!  Can't you see it?  "Ummm, Colonel, I'm going to need a few days off..."   

As Range Officer for two Army bases I've trained more than a thousand soldiers how to safely hold, load, shoot, carry, clean, maintain and store weapons of all types.  I've trained every member of my family how to do the same.  And many of their friends.  There are more than 100 million American gun owners who very likely do the same for their family and friends.

As well they should.    

I was raised to believe that I am responsible for me, my family and any friends anywhere near me.  And that so are you.  And I have equipped myself to succeed in that quest.  I believe the police cannot post a security guard on my property 24/7.  And unless and until they do, I'll be that security guard.  I fear for those who do not share my beliefs.  Of which there apparently are many.

It's amazing to me how "right" some ignorant people think they are, while being so indelibly wrong.

So when you read about a school in New Jersey, or anywhere else, clouding up and raining all over its students for exercising their individual Constitutional Rights, guaranteed them under the 2nd Amendment, and affirmed by Supreme Court decision (D. C. v. Heller), you can well understand that at least half of America thinks they are dangerously fascistic, ham-handedly dictatorial, unbelievably ignorant, and bottom line anti-American.  

And, oh yeah, scary!  

And that if this seemingly unending quest to disarm one-third of America, which is armed, by the 2/3rds majority that isn't,  doesn't abate, and soon, I also can predict the likely outcome.  And it's not the one the gun control crowd would find desirable    

But that's just my opinion...