"Their View" Archives:

April 11, 2004

• Look, Boys! Now You Can Fight Like Real Men!
• Benighted Brains
  (It Only Makes Sense To ‘Thems’ and ‘Dems’)

April 4, 2004

• The Governor is a Harsh Mistress
• Hanoi John and Mutha Theresa
  (Benedict Arnold Takes Aim at Benedict Arnold)

March 28, 2004

• 9/11: Blood On Bush's Hands?
• Entangling Alliances (Not On My Tires, You Don't!

March 21, 2004

• Creating Iraq In Our Image
• The New Face of America
  (Ranting Sheep Are But A Tempest In A Tea Pot)

March 14, 2004

• To Rock the Vote, Knock It, or Block It
• Why I Still Like Bush (A Word to the Pseudo Cons)

What They Thought April 18, 2004

R.A. Hawkins
Jonathan David Morris

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Jonathan David Morris:
The Day I Learned To Shoot

Last summer, right around July 4th, it occurred to me I ought to support the Second Amendment. Not that I ever opposed it, per se. I just hadn't thought about it before. But I realized last summer the right to keep and bear arms is crucial in this era of post-9/11 "vigilance." I even wrote an article about it, but never went further than endorsing this right. "I'm not opposed to the idea of owning... a gun," I said, "but I don't believe I'll need to any time soon." Why? Because "I buy my meat at the store and get along well with most of the folks I know."

All fine and good for a guy who, prior to that, had little more than experience with cap guns. Since then, however, I have paid closer attention to the gun-rights cause, and I have decided, once and for all, it's about much more than eating free meat and ending arguments. In fact, the cause isn't really about that at all. And, of course, this comes as no surprise to those who've long supported it, who by and large despise the idea of ending arguments with guns. But you have to understand I come from New Jersey, where guns are resigned to gun culture, with little or no place -- for most of us -- in everyday life.

For example, in '02, Gov. Jim McGreevey passed the nation's first "smart gun" law, requiring firearms with built-in sensors to prevent non-owners from firing them. "This is common sense legislation," McGreevey said. Oh, it's common, all right. About as common as smart guns, which McGreevey knew full well did not exist when he signed the law.

But anyway, all that aside, there is a definite gun community here in the Garden State, and last Wednesday -- more than two months after saying, "I'm going to get off my lazy rear end and learn how to use a gun already" -- I decided to join it. Sort of. What I did was I picked up the phone at around 4 o'clock that afternoon and dialed a shooting range midway between work and home. When the guy on the other line answered, I asked him: "Do you offer classes or anything like that?"

He paused for a second. "For what?"

"For guns," I said. "The only thing I've ever shot was water into a clown's mouth to pop a balloon at Six Flags."

"Well, come on down," he told me. "I'll show you how to use one. No better time than now."

He'll show me how to use one, I thought. Can he show me how to get dragged into a dark alley and beaten, too? I was sort of expecting an actual training session, I mean. You know, about safety and whatnot. This all sounded so unofficial and spooky. But, then, in retrospect, I realize I live in a fantasyland, police-state here in New Jersey. Most folks probably learn how to shoot from their dads by age 11 -- or hell, from their moms by age 12.

So I hopped in the car, headed on over, and decided I'd give it a shot. Pun intended.

Within the hour, I pulled into an unpaved lot near a big, forest-encircled field. No big, brick buildings here. Nothing too fancy. Just a trailer, a gun rack, and under a dozen honest, everyday men. Brawny Paper Towel-types, mostly. But throwbacks. I'm talking about the Brawny Man before he went metrosexual.

They were just putting their guns down to take a breath and adjust their glasses when I walked up. An older man wearing white with blue pinstripes approached me, saying, "You must be the fella I spoke with."

"Name's Jonathan," I said, shaking his hand.

"Nice to meet you, John."

That's Jonathan -- not John -- I thought. Johns are toilets. But it's close enough, I told myself. Pinstripes here owns guns. He can call me whatever he wants. Joan. Jerry. Late-For-Dinner. Didn't matter -- I didn't want to be dinner, after all.

"Well, it's an interesting game we've got here, John," he said. He pointed just then to three green huts -- or "houses" -- across the width of the field. Targets would be launched from behind them, he told me -- like tennis ball machines. I was expecting something more along the lines of a bowling alley, honestly, with bull's eyes instead of pins on individual lanes. Turns out, though, this place was set up for skeet shooting. That's where five guys get in a line and rotate from station to station, taking shots at targets in turn. It's more like five pitchers' mounds than bowling, I guess. "But," Pinstripes said, "it's good stress relief."

And so he handed me earplugs and a belt with some ammo in it, and we sat down in folding chairs as five other guys got into line in front of us.

Pinstripes showed me what seemed like a yellow joystick. "Whenever one of these guys is ready," he said, "they'll yell, 'Pull,' and I'll pull the target."

"Pull!" the first guy yelled.

Pinstripes pressed a button, a disk flew out, and -- BOOM! -- the guy blew it to bits.

Before I could tell myself, "Hey, this reminds me of Nintendo's smash hit, Duck Hunt," the second guy shouted out, "Pull!" Pinstripes hit the button, and once again -- BOOM! -- the disk shattered over the field.

(The joystick sealed the deal on the Duck Hunt comparison. Only thing missing was that damned laughing dog.)

"I can do this," I told myself. "I don't know how, or why, but I can do it. I think."

About a half hour later, Pinstripes walked me over to the gun rack, handed me a Remington 3200, and showed me how to hold it without breaking my jaw (i.e., with my cheek sort of resting on the handle). With four guys already waiting to start the next round, Pinstripes brought me to the open station, said some key things I couldn't hear through my earplugs, and told me, "Whenever you're ready, just say, 'Pull.'"

Listen: I was born ready.

"Pull!" I called out.

A disk took flight.

I hit the trigger.

BANG!

And I felt a skip in the space-time continuum. And the world shook beneath my feet. The ghost of the dog from Duck Hunt showed up and started laughing. And I swear to you it felt like someone punched me in the face.

"Just missed it," said Pinstripes. "Go again."

Go again? Are you crazy? All right, all right. Let's see here. Square up. Take a deep breath. You ready, JDM? Too late: "Pull!"

Here it comes.

BANG!

There it goes -- straight past the target again.

Who the hell keeps punching my face?!

I soon took a third shot, and a fourth, and missed both. The gun was getting heavy now. My arms were too tired to hold it.

"Square your shoulders," Pinstripes said.

"I can't," I wanted to answer. And the other guys eyed me -- in a patient way -- as if to say the same thing. And it's true: I just couldn't muster the strength to lift the gun again.

Wimpy, right?

But alas, like Rocky Balboa, I heard ringing in my ears, but I didn't "hear no bell." One more round, Adrian. One more round.

And so I held up the gun against my arms' wishes, and I did my best impression of the proper stance. I told God I was thankful for the good times and took my deepest breath yet. I closed my eyes -- just kidding -- pulled the trigger, and...

BOOM!

"You got it!" someone shouted.

I got it? I got it! I mean, of course I got it. I'm good at this. An old pro.

"You want to try a whole game?" Pinstripes asked me.

I looked at the guys on the line. The patience they'd shown me betrayed the stereotypes so often assigned to gun owners. And I thought about the Second Amendment for a moment, and how it's not meant to destroy life and liberty but to protect them -- a point I believe now more than ever before. I handed Pinstripes his Remington 3200, said, "I'll get out of everyone's way for now," and sat down to watch the next game. I then headed out to my car, satisfied. Tired, mind you, but satisfied.

It's hard to keep and bear arms when your own arms can barely keep the gun up. This much I know now. Mission accomplished, though. The rest I'll have to work on.

Jonathan David Morris      Web Site       Contact

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Lady Liberty's "Their View" Contributors:

R.A. Hawkins
Richard Hawkins was born in Aurora, Colorado and grew up in Littleton, Colorado in a quiet little neighborhood nobody has ever heard of called Columbine Knolls. He has been married to the same woman for twenty-six years, and worked for the same aerospace company for twenty-eight. His primary interests over the years have been his family, sociology, mastering his survival skills, windsurfing, music, politics, raising wolves, art of all types, mycology, perma-culture, archeological anomalies, geo-politics and staying gainfully employed; not necessarily in that order. He often describes himself as a separate subspecies of human – ‘Eclecticus-Iconoclastimus’. His primary driving force is his unwavering belief that as sovereign citizens we are each responsible not only for our own beliefs and actions, but where those beliefs and actions take us in life: That the truly intelligent person learns to determine what the consequences might be for our beliefs and actions and then acts accordingly. Our individual actions always affect far more than we can imagine. R.A. Hawkins is the author of "Through Eyes of Shiva," available via Amazon.com. More of Mr. Hawkins' commentaries can be found on his web site, Entropical Paradise.

Jonathan David Morris
Jonathan David Morris is a political writer based in New Jersey. A strong believer in small government, JDM often takes aim at oppressive taxes, entitlements, and laws, writing about incompetence at the highest levels of culture and government. Catch his weekly ramblings on his web site.

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R.A. Hawkins
The Problem With Shock And Awe
(Cleaning Up The Rest Of The Mess)

Although we never did get to see what ‘Shock and Awe’ looks like I think it is safe to say there might be a bit of a problem with the concept. A good soldier will see that conventional methods will not win the war and will back down to fight another day. That is exactly what we’re seeing in Iraq right now. When it became obvious they were going to lose they backed away and waited. My version of Shock and Awe would be quite different. It would involve a line that moved forward and suddenly got ‘bogged down’ and appeared to be failing. That would have happened for a week or so. Once all of the enemy troops had moved in to battle our failing lines they would have seen what Shock and Awe looked like, just as they left this troubled world behind. Shock and Awe would have started at the back of their lines and moved forward. They would have been trapped between our troops and rolling thunder approaching from their rear.

These people don’t fight unless they think they are going to win. We should have let them think they were winning. That would have drawn out the people who are pulling off the kidnappings and threatening to burn people alive. There is a reason they are killing people who run Red Crescent ambulances and various other types of relief workers. They, like all people who are drawn to tyranny, are cowards. There will be no Constitutional Republic or Democracy in the region until those people are removed from the scene.

A large part of the problem is coming from Iraq’s neighbor Iran. Any people we catch in there who are from Iran need to be summarily executed. Iran needs to be warned that they will be next if they aren’t careful. It is interesting to see North Korea is saying we have ramped up the rhetoric and are pushing towards a potential nuclear war with them. They are clearly trying to shift the attention of Americas populace towards them at a time when most of us who care are feeling a little stressed out. The answer to them should be a rather simple one: “No, we’re ignoring you at the moment because we’re busy and that damages the possibility of you being able to play your nuclear blackmail game. Yes, if you keep going like you are, there might be a nuclear war. Who do you think would win that one? Hmmmmmm?”

Why would North Korea think for one moment something like this might work? Well it is for the same reason that al-Sadr thought he could garner American support for his cause. It is the John Kerry’s, the Ted Kennedy’s and the numerous left wing commentators over here. That was why al-Sadr called out to the American public to rise up against our government and demand support for his fight against tyranny. America yawned. Most of the people here recognize his words as the words of a desperate despot. He is simply another Saddam wannabe. Even worse, he is an ingrate Saddam wannabe. Saddam has his father done in and he is free of that worry now and this is his thanks? He and the Sunni radicals have marginalized themselves.

What we have been seeing recently can’t be classified as a popular uprising. It is an act of desperation by a corrupt and cowardly group of people. They attack relief workers, threaten to burn them alive and feed them to the fighters so we will be horrified. They send a ten-year-old kid out with an RPG to hit a tank. They strap bombs on children and send them towards us. Because of this it amuses me slightly when I hear the liberals scream that this is another Vietnam. In a sense they want it to be. They pull out that image because that was the last war they won. Too bad they won it for the other side. They want, like the Sunni, Shiite and Ba’athists, to not be marginalized. They, like North Korea, want attention. Vietnam was lost here in the minds of the people long before the last shots were fired in that country.

If one wants to place blame over here for what is happening over there, don’t look at Bush. Look to the liberals who say Bush should apologize to the troops. My son just got his stay extended over there. He places the blame on the radicals over there. He wonders how they could be so stupid as to not wait until we left. He wonders how they could have been so idiotic as to not wait until after the now extra twenty-five thousand troops had left. He blames the Iraqi militants, Sunni and Shiite alike, for their stupidity.

I wonder what these radicals will be thinking when twenty-five thousand ticked off soldiers arrive at their doorstep. They are completely fed up with these thoughtless people.

Yes we accept your terms of surrender, al-Sadr. Here are our terms: Hand over all Syrians, Iranians, Arabians and Lebanese fighters and it’s a done deal. If you won’t identify them for us we have to assume you’re still going to cause trouble, and you’re toast.

R.A. Hawkins       Web Site       Contact