Kindred Spirits in Shooting Sports

When Gordon Morris Bakken was asked by my publisher to pen a short blurb for the back cover of my book, American Shooter, he instead did me the honor of going all in on a "foreward." He followed my model by making his work a review laced with patches from his own life, growing up with firearms and passing that love of the outdoors and marksmanship to his son. When he wrote for the back cover:

“An informative and enjoyable excursion, both historical and personal. Souter sets out

the problem of the polarization of public debate about guns. He seeks to separate 'myths and truth’ and ‘insights and blunders.’ This book is not about the Second Amendment

controversy. Yet Souter explores the nature of our gun culture and how deeply ingrained it is,

both personally and individually, and broadly throughout American society.”

I felt a kindred spirit. We both love the sport of firearms marksmanship for the skills required and for the camaraderie of our fellow sportsmen and women. We both started out as kids toting .22 rifles and still enjoy the crunch of trail breaking leaves under our boots and the faint scent of gun oil in the crisp fall air. It is a nice feeling to be in the company of a learned gentleman with enough alphabet soup after his name to be comfortable in any academic circle and yet he is grounded in the real world. One day, I hope we can meet in person, maybe stand side by side and drop the hammer on a few distant targets. Until then, I can only thank Gordon Morris Bakken, B.S., M.S., Ph.D, J.D.  Professor of History, California State University, Fullerton 

Shooting is like sex, but without the humiliation

American Shooter gave me the opportunity to dig through a carton of spiral-bound journals dating back to teen years (yes, those are on paper, not on animal skins written in sheep's blood -- I'm not that old). This excavation showed me (a) what a windy goon I was between occasional bursts of inspired literary elegance and (b) how many adventures, trials, victories and important decisions in my life trace back to a substitute for sex in a basement when I was 12 years old.

Sliding a greased bullet into a rifle's breech, easing the bolt forward in its receiver channel and locking down the handle; aligning the sights on a black circle target of concentric rings 50 feet distant and applying pressure to the trigger with my breath held in my throat, waiting... The mechanism's sear drops from its notch and the firing pin darts forward like a snake's tongue. Ignition. A puff of released gas and the bullet spirals out of the muzzle, corkscrewing down range to punch a hole in the paper target. Whap. Release. Unlock the bolt handle, withdraw the steel cylinder to the rear bringing with it the spent and empty brass cartridge case until the mechanical ejector snaps the case free of the extractor's grip and, like the sucked-dry husk of a dead insect, the brass shell shimmers briefly in its flight and then disappears into the darkness as another of its kind is slipped into the rifle's still-smoking breech. Score.

My first shot was a bulls-eye, dead center of the target, a "pinwheel" in shooter jargon. After years of failure at virtually every sport known to man (except possibly Buzkashi headless goat carcass racing, the premier sport of Afghanistan) Mom and Dad finally had a keeper!

What about the "sex" part? Try sliding bullets into the lubricated breech of a fine rifle or well balanced pistol with the anticipation of pumping those hot slugs down range at a distant target and try to not think of sex. Sure, once the process of shooting begins, your libido becomes entangled in the foreplay of trigger control, breathing, grip and lining up those pesky sights, but brother -- or sister -- you are caught up in an adrenaline-fueled orgasm of shoot and reload until that last round leaves the muzzle. You are spent, but unlike sex, you can begin again right away, time after time after time...