From the Editor

This issue of W&G is devoted to competition and recreational shooting. And, while the primary focus of this magazine has been, and will continue to be, the more serious pursuit of personal protection knowledge, there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun.

Sometimes, the competitive situation can provide unexpectedly serious lessons. An event like the National Tactical Invitational (NTI), which Lyn Bates describes on Page 28, has the built-in goal of teaching survival skills.

But other competitions, such as the Cowboy Action events both Sheila Link (Page 18) and Susan Laws (Page 34) write about, seem, at first glance to be less intense. That is, until you realize that Cowboy Action Shooting (CAS) is an alloy of the engaging “dress-up drama,” historical arms AND reality-based action scenarios, much like NTI.

Well, okay, maybe “reality-based” is a little strong: The CAS scenarios are set in the Old West. It’s unlikely, for example, that any time soon, you will need to use a broom handle to flip up a set of jail cell keys to yourself, thereby freeing yourself to pick up a lever action rifle and engage three desperadoes, represented by targets. (When I saw this particular CAS scene enacted, at PMC/El Dorado’s Boulder City, NV, plant, a year or two back, my own Grizzled Paw, had the best key-flipping time, if not aggregate score.)

What this kind of plot does teach is that in a stress-filled situation, you will need to be thinking forward, backwards and ahead in order to survive.

With the possible exception of Curling, most sports are based on a pretty simple premise: winning a make-believe battle. If you’re a kid romping around the neighborhood with friends, it might be a simple game of Keep Away or Tag. If you’re a grade schooler it might be the introduction of more elaborate rules in a match of Kick Ball. If you’re in high school, you might begin to take things more seriously when “your” school faces off against a rival’s in a game of Basketball or Soccer.

These “games” teach things beyond the sport itself. And, while I have always been wary of the “sports as metaphor” crowd, these are lessons we not only need to learn at an early age, but need reinforced in later years from time to time.

The act of playing hard and playing tough need not be an invitation to brutality, or to machismo, or even to show off your really, really expensive sports shoes with the cool logo on them.

Almost all images of sport—the classic “thrill of victory, agony of defeat” model—are designed to tell us about other people, and about ourselves.

The language of sport is full of both the martial and mythical: “Cinderella” teams do “battle” with one another, and everyone gets caught up in it—although not everyone strips down to her “interactive sports bra” for the last penalty kick. Good sports teaches physical skills, mental skills and social skills, along with the myths.

It was interesting to me as stories from our Contributing Editors came in for this issue, that several centered around young people. Susan Laws’ competition piece, as well as both Kitty Beuchert’s and Nancy Norell’s hunting offerings, recognize that these acts are valuable to young people both in the present and the future.

Not only does the process of acquiring of new skill require learning, it also requires the teaching by someone else—in the cases cited in the pages, parents and grandparents. All three of our writers recognized pretty quickly than in these troubled days, this sort of familial sharing of knowledge and recreation is not just wholesome, but probably vital.

A friend with three kids—grown and nearly grown—has made it a point to teach them not just how to shoot, but his own love of it. Of the three, some are more willing to participate in a day afield with John, or a evening on the trap line, but all of them have gotten something from it, even if they never pick up another gun. I think you could argue that the actual skills they learned were the bonus—that the real value was in doing something with dad.

I understand that of all the permutations of guns and shooting we could mention in these pages, hunting sets off the most alarums. I’m prepared to risk—and even welcome—the inevitable letters we get whenever we bring up hunting, because, let’s face it: any argument that starts with “you don’t need this,” can be pretty well applied to any other subject. Denying others something you don’t have any interest in has a nasty way of setting a precedent for rejection of something you do care about by yet another person.

I’ve pretty much made up my own mind that I will never hunt. My own reasoning is based on self-knowledge: I don’t want to get up that early if I don’t have to, my taste for interaction with nature—or as I like to think of, the place where I park my car—is pretty limited, etc. etc. I wish I could be a little more like my friend Anne who took a hunter safety course a few years back, just to learn the skills, with no intention of ever putting them to use. I am also inclined to think I’m never going to customize a Glock, either.

Often, gunowners, boxed into political discussions, fall back on reasons for firearms ownership that rely on what is called the “sporting use” argument. That is, that guns have a “legitimate” role based on their use in a variety of recreational activities, from informal plinking to the Camp Perry Matches to filling the freezer with venison.

There are a couple good reasons for that even if, in purely political terms, it’s an argument that doesn’t hold either Constitutional or moral water.

The sports metaphor is accessible to most people—even those of us chosen nearly last in pick-up softball games. We understand the urge to do something physical, skillful, even joyful, even if we don’t know a blue line from a line of scrimmage. Someone who plays basketball at the Y might be less likely to be alarmed at your gun ownership if you couch it in sports terms, even unfamiliar ones.

As we’ve talked about many times before, sometimes when and how you say something is as important as what you say.

A water cooler discussion of guns probably isn’t the place to quote James Madison.

But that same water cooler might just be the right place to let your enthusiasm for the fun of guns come out. A weekend recounted in terms of outdoor activity, of second or third place finishes (or even just showing up), speaks to acquaintances in ways insistence on rights, doesn’t.

Of course, there’s nothing at all to limit you to just talking about your sports preferences, or reminding listeners gently that without a right to own a gun you couldn’t pursue these recreational activities; polticis, it seems, eventually meets just about every thing else in life. You might want to invite someone to watch a match—especially something as viewer friendly as a modern or Old West “action” event. (It’s still not time to talk about Madison!)

Perhaps this is a happy experience for both you and your friend. You detect a glint, a glimmer, a gleam—some other word that starts with “G” and denotes active interest. You casually mention an event like the one described on Page 42—hands-on firearms training for beginners, maybe even limited to women-only. A tentative nod from your friend—backed up with the gleam/glimmer/glint—knowledge just might be more fun to collect than Beanie Babies.

Once your friend has shared the knowledge, whether she participates or just anticipates your own stories to come, the rest of the arguments will come a lot easier.

There’s a reason why not everyone is a teacher—often there’s an urge to wrest the knitting, the steering wheel, whatever, out of someone’s hands, and say, “Here! Let me show you!” In fact that kind of “showing” doesn’t usually teach much.

But if you start with sharing your own enthusiasm it’s just a matter of time before you get to show off how much you know about Madison as well.