Reality “Check, Check, Check….”

Is this mic on?? An important message for the far left…

An Aussie brother in the outback practicing with his SMLE

By Francis Marion of Highcountryblog.com for The Burning Platform

“The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.” ― Jeff Cooper, Art of the Rifle

“What are you laughing at?”

My PH composed himself for a moment cleared his throat, shook his head and smiled. I don’t speak Afrikaans or Zulu so I was a bit lost.

“My tracker says ‘for a guy with a stiff neck you sure do shoot good!’”

I grinned and hopped down off the back of the Toyota and started making my way with the rest of the crew into the dry, hip high grass. It had been a long morning in the hills. We’d seen hundreds of immature impala but not a single decent ram in the bunch. So when a good male exploded out of the bush to our right, crossing the track in front of our vehicle into shorter grass and an open area of large trees, my PH had a fit.

“Shoot the ram, shoot the ram! Kill it! Fast,” he yelled from the seat next to me!

Ok then.

At home shooting from the back of a vehicle is illegal. But not in Africa. In fairness, we hadn’t been road hunting (it’s not my preference) and were actually on our way back to camp to have brunch when it happened. It was late morning so I had my feet up on the roof of the Land Cruiser and was busy soaking up the sun and studying the inside of my eyelids when all hell broke loose.

By the time I grabbed my rifle from its rack and figured out what the heck was going on the small group of impala that moments ago had crossed our front bumper were already close to a hundred yards out and making a beeline for the next valley.

At about one hundred and ten yards they suddenly hung a left and started to quarter across my line of site with the ram picking up the rear. They were booking it so I jacked a round out of the magazine of the Mauser and into the chamber, stuck the crosshairs out in front of him by about a foot and squeezed.

It was like shooting whitetails on a deer drive. You don’t have a lot of time to think so you act more or less on instinct, sort of like tossing a ball. You judge speed, distance, and lead in a moment then throw. A fraction of a second later 286 grains of copper and lead met their mark and caught the ram in mid-flight. When he hit the ground he landed feet up. Four hooves and a cloud of red dust were all I could see through the lens of the scope.

There have been volumes written on the art of the rifle both in print and online but I maintain that it is still one of those things that is primarily instinctual. Over the years I have introduced many to the shooting sports and I can say with some degree of confidence that some are born into it, some learn it in time and some should probably never, ever, EVER pick up a rifle again. Ever.

I’ll never forget one of the more impressive examples of marksmanship I ever saw unfold in real time. It was my old man and I was probably about fifteen at the time. He and I had taken a high school buddy of mine out into the rolling hills of jack pine and poplar just northeast of where we lived along the Saskatchewan river to hunt some grouse.

It had been a slow morning with no birds until after an hour or two when my dad suddenly stops and nods. There were a couple of ruffies strutting around a downed pine and a mess of willows just to our left. My dad had the shot and was carrying his Ruger 10/22 so Dave and I hung back and let him maneuver in for the kill. I watched as he pulled the trigger on one bird while the other, standing only a foot or two away from the first, took off. No word of a lie my dad was on the second bird as fast as you could say ‘sum a bitch’ and knocked it out of the air from a good thirty feet. With a .22. Out of the air.

I remember Dave and I looked at one another half stunned and my old man, composed as best he could with a shit-eating grin plastered across his face hands us the birds and slyly says, “And that my boys, is how it’s done.”

I’d like to say it was luck, and I suspect in part it was, but I also have to admit he was a pretty good shot. At least for an old guy. Like his dad, he came by it naturally and so have I and both my kids, my son and my daughter apparently having inherited the same gene.

Now, this is not to say that every conservative type I’ve ever met has been handy with a rifle either, my university roommate being a prime example. But my observation is that the difference in the way the two types of people think and operate somehow leads to a difference in how they handle small arms. Why that is I couldn’t say, but I think it might have something to do with some of us being closer to our roots as predators and some of us being closer to domesticated livestock. Wolves have canines. Sheep don’t.

All joking aside, truthfully I’m not sure if it is genetic or if it is simply a confidence issue but some folks simply lack the coordination, mentally and physically, to handle the tool properly. And God forgive me for saying it but the vast majority of the folks I’ve tried to get into shooting over the years who have been a danger to both themselves and everyone around them have tended to be pretty ‘progressive’ in mindset. That’s just a numerical fact I can’t deny.

Which leads me to this Antifa nonsense I keep reading about. Apparently, these folks are unhappy with getting their asses kicked by smaller numbers of right wingers at Berkeley. Well, I get your frustration guys but the answer, in this case, is not to pick up a rifle and ‘get some training’. In fact, I’d say that’s about the worst bit of advice I’ve ever heard anyone give anyone. You see, some folks are just born to fight, like some of us are born to hunt and shoot. That’s just the way it is and no amount of training is going to change that.

So before folks start getting stupid and doing stupid things let me give you some advice:

First, if you’ve never seen what happens to a large mammal when it is struck by a bullet you ought to do yourself a favor and at least turn on youtube and have a look. Death ain’t a pretty thing and it doesn’t always happen easily or peacefully and if you can’t handle the sight of something like a deer or an elk or an elephant going down and the ordeal and blood it all entails then ask yourself how you are likely to deal with it if it is a person? Men come back from war with PTSD for a reason. It’s because killing other men is hard on the soul (assuming you got one) and can seriously fuck you up. You don’t need to experience combat to know this, I haven’t, you just have to be bright enough to listen to those who have. And learn. That listening and learning part is important.

Second, and this is something the right learned a long time ago because we have been dealing with government rats, trolls and miscreants for decades, is that the guy who is trying to convince you that ‘getting some training’ and carrying openly in order to ‘provoke righty’ is a good idea is likely being paid to get you into a whole heap of shit you don’t want any part of.

Which leads me to point number three: the guy who is leading/misleading you is working for someone else. Which means that what is really happening is you are being used. To do someone else’s dirty work. And the one thing I can guarantee you is that a man (or woman) who is willing to put you in the line of fire but not themselves ain’t worth shit and sure as hell ain’t worth risking your life for.

And finally, if an aging, partly crippled redneck like me, who has never been in the military or a police force is already light years ahead of all you ‘Che Guevara’ wannabe’s in terms of skill and training then how do you think you will stack up against the guys on the right (or possibly the government itself) who preface their names with titles such as “sergeant” or “lieutenant“? Cause if I wouldn’t fuck with those boys because I’m smart enough to know that crawling around the mountains chasing goats and mule deer ain’t combat then what makes you think you’d stand a snowball’s chance in hell with them? Hmm? Food for thought, right?

The intelligent among you, assuming there are any, will give all of these points some serious consideration. Failure to do so will land many of you in prison (likely) or possibly worse (hopefully not).

My advice is stick to protesting, peacefully, or fisticuffs (as childish as it is) if you must but don’t go for the guns.

Because while you guys and gals have been sitting around the student lounge and the coffee shop discussing ‘the revolution’ over lattes and cappuccinos the rest of us have been busy doing what we’ve always done: working for a living, playing a little and tipping over beer cans in the back yard, whitetails on the back forty and elk in the high country. For millions of us, that’s what we were born to do. How about you?

Photo of a photo. My Limpopo Impala Ram.