Some Thoughts on Winning…

I received a lovely email this morning, one that I would class as a thinly veiled threat to me and mine. It was, of course, obscene and unsigned (and neither the first I’ve received, nor, I imagine, the last), but I can share a bit of the joy with you:

F$%@ off, asshole! You are the s&%# that ruins America!

Yet for all that venom, it is nothing compared to the deluge of sludge, including multiple death threats, that has fallen on Olympic trapshooter (and bronze medalist in 2008) Corey Cogdell, a fine athlete, an outstanding person…and a hunter. I’m not even going to repeat those slurs and death threats here (and her Twitter pages have been taken down), but let me refer you to Bitter’s blogpost on SHALL NOT BE QUESTIONED, who’s been covering this disgusting and profoundly unAmerica interlude. You can read her reports here and here.

This is what a hero looks like!

Safari Club International has stepped up to support Corey, and I imagine the other firearms organizations will be issuing their own statement now that Corey is finished with her Olympic games, having failed to advance beyond the qualifiers today. It’s impossible to speculate what kind of effect the anti-hunting/anti-shooting venom had on her performance…I’m sure Corey would graciously say none at all. But as a competitor myself, knowing that apparently crazy people had threatened both me and my family would weigh heavily on my mind when I stepped to the line.

Corey and my good friend Kim Rhode were mentioned by name on anti-gunting/anti-gun “progressive” sites like Change.Org and circulated on sites like Examiner.com, which ran this piece of crap on Friday. The MSM is typically silent, except for this “iReport” on CNN, which carries a specific disclaimer that this iReport, while assigned by the failing network, “Not vetted for CNN.” The report parrots the anti-hunting sites and makes no mention of the multiple, repeated death threats. This is one of the milder disses, and I suggest you read the comments. These are, as I say, the mild ones.

I had agonized over blogging about this for fear of shaking more whackos out of the trees. In fact, this morning I had a long talk with my friend Paul Erhardt, whose opinion I respect, about this subject and who urged me to write something. Then I arrived home to find my own threat waiting for me.

So I think there are some things that need to be said.

I have noted the increasing calls to violence among not just anti-hunting zealots, but anti-shooting (more correctly, anti-rights) zealots as well. I believe these increasing calls to violence are because we not only are winning, but have in fact won. Americans don’t want more gun control, and Americans think hunting is a perfectly fine sport. The antis have thrown everything they had against us for the last 30 years, and the American people have responded by tuning them out.

Obviously, the vast majority of this venom is pure loud-mouthed bluster, egged on by Internet anonymity. But as we saw in Aurora — and as those of us who take our personal defense very seriously already know — there are among the shouters, the blusterers, the provocateurs, the inciters and inflamers and the sad little people with a computer in their parents’ basement the rare few whose minds are…broken…festering swamps of paranoia, of violent fantasies, of unrequited violence. And I believe that the posters of all these fantasy threats hope and and pray in their heart of hearts that somewhere out there is a lunatic who will do their bidding, who will bring the gasoline and fertilizer to the party and make real the posters’ dark and often explicitly stated fantasies.

If this is the price of our victory, so be it. But our enemies need to understand that we are united, hunters and shooters stand together. An attack on one is an attack on all.