Friday, July 30, 2010

A Nation of Riflemen

SIH points to a NYT's piece on Appleseed and gives his own comments.

There definitely seems to be some regional differences in Appleseeds or at least that's the impression the Times article gives in comparison to my own experience. Shooting was never emphasized as a way to 'win a revolution' but as a challenge to your own skills. While many of the anecdotes from the period did involve good marksmanship in lieu of the mass firings which were the standard at the time, what they all involved were personal risk, sacrifice, and involvement in order to defend your beliefs and way of life.

I agree w/ Sebastian. Being able to shoot out to 500m isn't going to win a modern conflict. It's going through the ordeal of learning how to and dealing w/ long, hard, HOT days to do so that gives you a glimmer of what our forefathers went through and how they thought when they forged this nation.

Outside of marksmanship skills, they emphasized a '7th' step:

1)Shoot
2)Recruit
3)Educate
4)Communicate

Get involved. Get other people involved. Contact your representatives. Vote. Talk to people. Educate yourself on the issues.

That was the 'message' that I took away from last weekend.


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1 comment:

Patrick said...

Agreed. That is basically my experience as well. I would say what I took away from the event was an increased sense of the gift we were given as Americans by our forefathers (and it didn't stop with the American revolution). It also shed more light into what they went through and sacrificed. Many of the people they talk about at the event, I had never learned in school.
I think we as Americans take what we have for granted and don't understand the foundation that was laid to get where we are today. I also don't think many Americans understand what happens when you modify or dismantle a foundation. Things that don't seem relevant now, still are.