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“The future ain’t what it used to be.”–Yogi Berra
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The list above of countries where civilians have the most guns is both shocking but not surprising. Yes, and if you didn’t know we have more guns than people in America. No other place on earth even comes close. I don’t see a need to comment further. What can I possibly add?
In my life I’ve only fired guns in two very different even perhaps incongruous situations. The first was at a summer camp in Maine named Androscoggin. The second was when I served in the Israeli army. Let me be clear immediately and say I never had to shoot at anybody, only at targets.
Camp Androscoggin was an island in a lake and its rifle range sat against the island’s shore. We shot .22 caliber rifles which are used for marksmanship training, small game hunting and pest control. Of course if they can kill a rabbit or a rat, a well placed shot could kill a human being and at camp we fired into targets that were posted against a wooden backboard that had the lake just behind it.
I see now that bullets from a .22 can travel over a mile and I was not aware what if any precautions were taken to prevent us from maiming any boaters in the area who might potentially have been sitting ducks. Were there bales of hay behind the backboard to catch the rounds? I don’t remember. Were any of us such a bad shot or a juvenile delinquent that we would miss the target accidently or the backboard intentionally? I don’t remember.
What I do remember is what I consider a life lesson that I’ve had to learn over and over. I’ll describe it and I think you’ll understand.
We shot in a prone position at our targets which means one lies flat on his or her chest and puts one hand under what’s called the forestock of the rifle that’s under the barrel while the other hand is placed on the gun’s trigger. It’s simply the most stable position for accuracy and we aspired to that. Our sessions on the range certainly included lessons on gun safety but were also competitive when it came to shooting accurately.
Over a half century ago the National Rifle Association wasn’t an inexorable threat to sane gun laws and a political noose around many American politicians’ necks who might push for us to have them. The NRA’s programs included one for teenagers and lots of summer camps offered it. The picture below is of Androscoggin campers in the 1940s. The patches are what campers like myself aspired to earn from the NRA in the 1960s.
I think I probably qualified for at least the most basic ranking or maybe not but one day down on the Androscoggin range I was shooting beside the best marksman in camp and after we finished firing and retrieved our targets he was angry…
Him: “You shot at my target!”
Me: “I did not.”
Him: “Yes, you did. I don’t shoot flyers!”
A flyer was a shot that missed the round black area of the small target that contained concentric rings which at its center was a little circle– the bullseye. You were scored on where your bullets penetrated the rings with the maximum score being hitting the bullseye. My shooting neighbor almost always scored bullseyes and never had flyers. But at the time his fuming struck me as conceited.
It was only years later I realized that people with an exceptional talent aren’t necessarily conceited at all. They know their capabilities and expect you to respect them. If Vladimir Horowitz had sat down to perform at a piano in Carnegie Hall and it was badly out of tune either he or the piano tuner or the Steinway would have hit the highway or maybe all three. As I’ve mentioned I’ve had to relearn this lesson more than just that once.
On the other hand I had an experience during my service in the Israeli Army where missing my target didn’t work out the way I had hoped. During my year in an artillery battery in the Sinai Desert in 1974, my unit mostly stayed put in our position back from the Suez Canal. To break up the boredom we had training exercises of course and performers who came to entertain us, lecturers– I saw my first pocket calculator when a professor brought one to show us –even guided nature hikes with our M-16s on our shoulders.
But then there were the tryouts for the “Army Olympics.” As you might imagine the events were not ones ever thought up by the ancient Greeks or any host nation to this day in the era of the Modern Games. There were pull ups with a weighted vest, squats with jumps over a low bar and a heavy backpack endurance run which was immediately followed by a sprint without it.
I wasn’t excited by these opportunities to try out. I had a weekend leave coming up and if I made our team in any of these events it would be delayed. I didn’t have to dog it at all not to qualify in pull ups or squats but I was in good shape and I was pretty sure I could have, even with the weight on my back, made the team in running if I had wanted, but there was one other event that I needed to fail at– target shooting. When it was my turn, my intentional aiming outside the target drew the suspicion of one of our battery’s lieutenants.
Him: “Imber, I know you can shoot better than this. Reload!”
I did but even trying I still avoided making the team and a few days later stood in formation when those getting leaves home would be announced. I was dismayed when our captain told us that since the soldiers who were our team heading to the Army Olympics in a few days, there would be no leave for anyone else until they returned.
I was further annoyed after the team did return and at the next formation when I expected my delayed short furlough would be announced I heard this instead…
Captain: “We did really well at the competition and as a reward for all of you who were part of the team, you have earned a week’s leave. Others who were scheduled to go home today will have to wait for them to get back.”
Another lesson learned? Well, maybe there are actually times when I guess it’s best not to aim too high!
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Under the heading and asking the question, “Does history repeat itself?”
The Story of Samson in the Old Testament
The Philistines brought Samson to Gaza and bound him to two pillars in their temple for the amusement of the Philistine worshipers to witness. Samson prayed to God, asking for his strength to return to him one more time. Judges 16:28
God responded and Samson with a final burst of strength pushed against the pillars and brought the entire temple down, killing himself and all those in it with him.
The text concludes: “Those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life.” Judges 16:30
The Story of Bibi in the Hebrew year of 5783
“There was no rule Benjamin Netanyahu would not break in his quest to return to the prime minister’s office – including legitimizing Israel’s most racist party and its leader Itamar Ben-Gvir.” (Haaretz 12/29/22)
“Benjamin Netanyahu finally disengaged on Monday from the democratic, liberal, progressive, enlightened, and Western Israel of which he used to boast. He has made a blood pact with the racist, messianic, ultra-Orthodox and nationalist State of Judea. This group will bring destruction upon him, but no one can find joy in this; a similar fate awaits the country itself.” (Haaretz 7/25/23)
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