Pro-2nd Amendment Jewish Politicians Elected in 2014

Last week across the US elections were held for many state and federal offices.  Several Pro-2nd Amendment Jews were elected:

Dan Lederman of South Dakota, who I've covered before.
Craig Goldman of Texas, who has been rated 92% favorable by the NRA.
Lee Zeldin of New York, who was also rated highly by the NRA.

Please drop me a line if you know of someone I've left out!

Jewish Shooters Needed for European Maccabi Games!

Attention all Jewish Marksmen!  Today I received the following from Jed Margolis,Executive Director of Maccabi USA:

We have been invited to bring a shooting team to Berlin for the European Maccabi Games. To date no one has applied. We are submitting our Entry Form #2 tomorrow with our team participation. If you know of anyone who might be interested please let me know right away. Thank you.

Contact Jed at jmargolis@maccabiusa.com, and please let me know if you are going so I can report!

Must See Ethiopian Israeli Mauser!

An easy fast to all who will be fasting this weekend.  But before you run off to dinner and schul, you need to see this one:
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=444196397

I wouldn't even venture a guess as to price.  Good luck and buyer beware!

Exposing Dan Slott - Jewish Marksman's Thoughts

This blog continues to serve as a Hall of Fame for Jews involved in shooting sports, 2nd Amendment advocacy, and other firearms-related activities.  However, on rare occasions when a Jewish public figure deserves it, I induct them into Jewish Marksman's Hall of Shame.  Today's inductee is Dan Slott, a comic book author, currently working on several titles for Marvel, including Spider-man.

Slott frequently espouses his distaste for guns and gun owners on Twitter.  Like most opponents of the Second Amendment, Slott's arguments are purely emotional and devoid of logic.  Recently he expressed his displeasure with Americans' rights to own more than one firearm, thereby amassing an "arsenal".  Specifically, Slott argued that the danger presented by a mentally ill person is proportionate to the number of his/her accessible firearms.  Slott mentioned Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook school shooter, as an example.

Yours truly responded on Twitter directly to Slott by pointing out the logical and practical fallacy of this argument, to wit, that a human being can only simultaneously fire so many weapons at once, proportionate to the number of hands he/she has.  By way of analogy, is an alcoholic owning only one car any more of a DUI risk than an alcoholic owning 100 cars?  I also pointed out that Lanza only used two firearms during his rampage, a rifle to kill others (requiring 2 handed operation) and a single shot from a pistol to kill himself.  I am no expert on mass shootings, but I cannot recall an incident where a single crazed gunman utilized more than 2 or at most 3 firearms.  Considering a single firearm can be reloaded with a fresh magazine almost instantly (as fast or faster than switching to another firearm), I fail to see why a crazy person with two or three guns is any more or less dangerous than the same person with one gun and two or three loaded magazines.  In short, logic suggests that laws limiting the number of guns a person can own have no potential to save lives should that person become criminally insane and rampage.

Slott, like most anti-gun activists, can't tolerate logic and reason.  He wrongly accused me of lying about the number of firearms Lanza fired, made outlandish caricatures of my arguments, and banned me from his Twitter feed.  I have attempted to piece together the twitter conversation below (it seems it did not all occur in one Twitter thread so I have done my best to piece it together from a couple threads...you get the gist):

Uninformed, irrational and divisive people like Slott do nothing to advance the society's dialogue about firearms.  There are plenty of other comics creators out there, so I'll be avoiding anything written by this schmuck.  

Jewish Marksmanship Update and Scatt Analysis

Thanks to all those that have asked about my well being.  All is well.  As I mentioned in previous posts, work has been a bear, making weekend free time precious.  So for the time being matches take a back seat to daddy-daughter time.

However, I'm still training several times a week with the Scatt, focusing on the standing position.  I'm using a new laptop that has wifi (my old laptop died) so I can share screen captures now.   Here is a recent model shot, simulating 200 yards standing:

Time is represented by color, from Green->Yellow->Blue->Pink Shot->Red

If you follow the green line from the top left, you see I approach and actually first cross through the 10 ring but don't fire.  Should I have fired then?  The rifle looped up in the 9 ring (yellow line) and and crossed through the X ring (blue line).  As you can see, either the rifle was moving fast or my release wasn't early enough, so the shot hit just on the edge of the 10 (the pink dot).

I'm happy with the hold (more or less), but clearly I need to work on being more aggressive and get comfortable with firing as I see the rifle just cross the 9 ring.  By the time I see that 10 it's too late, the rifle is going to move out of the 10 if I can't find the courage and confidence to know it will be in the 10 when the shot goes.  From reading David Tubb's book, this is an especially important skill to develop for shooting standing in windy conditions.

Jews, Comic Books,Guns and Marksmanship

Superheroes in America

Like most American kids born after WWII, I grew up with superheros as part of popular culture.  As a kid in the 1980's, some of the my favorites were Spider-man and Batman (the latter in re-runs of the live-action show with Adam West). I also remember watching cartoons of the Justice League of America, and the Fantastic Four.  Those shows did a great job of communicating strong American (and in-fact, historically Jewish) values and ethics to American kids.  Values and ethics like: standing up for the weak, bravery, fighting against evil, modesty, humility, work-ethic.

Jewish roots of American Superhero Mythology

Of course, anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the superhero "industry" in the US will grant that much of it was created through the work of Jews, and Jews remain actively involved and influential.  Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber), although not observant, is still at the top of the food chain and a creative giant with Marvel comics (Captain America, Spider-man, etc..) .  His wildly popular X-Men series, in particular, contains all sorts of Jewish themes, including major characters who are explicitly Jewish.  On the DC Comics (a rival publisher) side, Superman had a Jewish creator, as did Batman, just to name a few.

And what does this have to do with Guns?
Many people misunderstand the 2nd Amendment, and the reasons so many Americans own guns.  The reason is simple: we choose to be strong, brave and to fight against evil.  We refuse to be victims of crime.  We refuse to be victims of tyranny.  And this attitude was shaped, in part, by our childhood superhero stories.

The American superhero stories teach a life lesson very clearly: the weak can and will be abused and enslaved by the strong.  In order for the weak to defend themselves, they need to level the playing field.  They need powers.  To emphasize that point, every comic book hero's lore includes an arc where the hero loses his or her powers, and becomes vulnerable (think Superman and kryptonite).  We can't take pills (yet) that give us Superman's powers, but we can learn to use guns to level the playing field with the bad guys.

and Marksmanship?
Through Spider-man, Stan Lee (again, born Stanley Martin Lieber) tells Americans that "WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME--GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!" That means developing excellent safety habits and marksmanship skills.  Another value taught to American children through superhero stories.

Currently my 4 year old daughter and I are enjoying a number of animated superhero series on Netflix, including "Spider-man and His Amazing Friends" and the "Incredible Hulk."  Her favorite is the mutant Fire Star, of course.  These are great shows we can watch together, and discuss the moral and ethical conflicts that the shows address.  Unlike "Barney" and other politically correct garbage fed to kids today, she is learning that indeed there are good guys and bad guys in the world, and we must all stand up to the bad guys.  On her own, she commented that "people shouldn't be afraid of the Hulk just because he looks different, they should talk to him and learn that he is really very nice and a good guy."

I'm enjoying using Marvel's Marvel Unlimited app to explore their library...there are plenty of comics that are interesting for adults.  Check it out!

Jewish Marksman's Status Report

Work has kept me extremely busy, and unfortunately I needed to work some weekends that coincided with matches, meaning I could not attend matches for the past few months.  That really stinks because this time of year in Florida is great for matches weather-wise, because it tends to be not so hot but the winds pick up to make the matches more challenging.  Hopefully this month or next I'll get back in the game.

In the meantime, I've been practicing with the SCATT system and really making some changes to my standing position for improvement:  

• I have taken to keeping my trigger-arm elbow to my side instead of winged out, which makes for a tighter and more stable position.  
• I've also set my front sight to it's narrowest iris, allowing for very little white around the bull, and that has really tightened my hold as well.  
• I've moved my grip much lower on the grip handle, which allows me grip a little tighter and really isolate the trigger finger's movement.
• Lastly, I've really focused on making my approach to the bull more efficient and quicker, trying to get the shot off in 3-6 seconds once the rifle is "on target".

The results have been scatt averages of 95+, which is great for me.  I think also getting away from the matches for a while has also changed my perspective a little bit...got my mind off the game and more focused on enjoying the process.