WarOnGuns regulars know I took the weekend off. I was at Knob Creek. It was great.
I got a chance to finally meet Len Savage and Mike Vanderboegh in person.
Mike brought his in-development manuscript for "Absolved" and shared how the story will continue to unfold and where we'll find ourselves when it "ends." I'll presume to believe you'll really like it. We also talked about strategies for promoting the book and getting it into the hands of the public.
Len was extremely generous and let my son and Mike's daughter shoot several guns. You can tell a lot about a man by watching him exhibit pure joy, and while both kids had a blast, pun intended, it's hard to say who was having more fun.
We knew when we saw it that it would just be a matter of hours before a video about the accident hit the Internet. For those speculating in forum comments, the car explosion and guy on fire were part of a stunt act. What wasn't planned were chunks of metal blasting into the spectators on the front line--they were damned lucky more pieces didn't go flying.
The stunt itself was impressive. Whether it belongs at a shoot I'll leave to others, but based on results it should not have been that close to the crowd. I heard two people were injured and saw one of them--an Ohio gun designer/exhibitor/shooter, wheeled out by the EMTs with his arm temporarily wrapped and blood spatter on his shirt--but all things considered, he was in good spirits and actually joked about it to the people in the bleachers as they rolled him away. I heard the second injured man had broken bones in his hand or wrist, but did not see him. I did see a security guy carry away a hunk of metal that looked to weigh a couple pounds, so the potential for a real negligent tragedy was there.
That said, the incident shouldn't mar enthusiasm to attend future events--I'm sure there's been a lesson learned, and I know I'm looking forward to more shoots now that I've had my first taste.
And here's the thing that struck me more than anything else--here we were surrounded by thousands of hard core gun owners, here we were in the presence of Americans firing machine guns and flame throwers and what-have-you, here we were walking through hundreds of tables filled with militia-suitable hardware most of us can only dream about ever owning, and the major visible "police" presence for most of my time there was guys walking around wearing orange t-shirts, yet I could not imagine a safer place to be. Imagine that--no overt coercion and everybody was behaving themselves.
The "liberal" anti-gun enuretics are so demonstrably full of it--every damn one of them. America's armed-to-the-teeth "extremist" gun owners are the most peaceable people on the planet. Everyone I met and talked to was salt-of-the-earth, nice, interesting, friendly, informed...yeah, I'm sure there must have been some jerks around, but I didn't meet them--and I even made a conscious effort to play "Where's Wintemute?"
I saw nothing but exemplary behavior bolstered with awesome knowledge, safe gun handling...
With all the flash and bang and smoke, it's funny. You'd think that would be what left me with the most visceral reaction, but it's not. What I left there with, more powerfully than my words can convey, is confidence and, to reclaim a word, hope.
We are better than our enemies. Here's to conducting ourselves like we know it.