Why I Shoot

Yeah, ok, this post is a bit random, but I'm bored, it's late, and I'm unemployed, so you're getting it anyway. Deal with it.

There are certain things that I love in life. Driving is first and foremost. Driving is a technical pursuit that will always have a special place in my heart, and a lot of the things espoused in this post apply to it as well. However, shooting is also a technical pursuit, for much the same reasons as driving. Here's why.

Shooting is pure. What do I mean by this? It's simple. Shooting doesn't care how good a person you are. It doesn't care how nice you are. It doesn't care how much you gave to charity last year. It cares about how much your physical and mental abilities can come into play to do something precise.

Call me cold. Call me evil. That's fine. It's not that I don't care about human things like starving children and sad puppies. I do. But for whatever reason, I have been, throughout my life, blessed - or cursed, take your pick - with  a love of competency. Nothing moves me like it. I'm a bastard, but it's who I am.

Shooting (driving, building computers, take your pick) has always fascinated me. We live in a complicated world. Drone strikes, the NSA spying on our communications, etc. It's hard to know exactly how much control we have over our lives. Not so in shooting.

See, in shooting, only one thing matters: how well can you control the material matter in your hands to put holes in paper where you want them. It's precision. It's control. It's life.

Bear with me.

Given the way things run in this country, how much control do you have over your life? Really. You vote, but the choices you're offered don't offer much in the way of you deciding anything. Once the men and women you've voted for are in office, it's they who make decisions, not you. Fact.

But when I drive, when I game, when I shoot, I'm in control. What do I mean? When I put that three pounds, 8 ounces on the trigger of my Ruger American, I control where that .223 inch diameter  bit of lead goes. Me. Myself. I. I do. Hits are mine. Misses are mine. Mine alone.

It's not Obama. It's not Congress. They have no bearing. Any amount of respect, or lack therof, cannot determine where that bullet goes. Just me. Just me and my rifle.

That's what shooting is to me: control. Same with my SRT. Same with my copy of BF4. It's me. Not them. I have a modicum of control over my life in an uncertain world.

That's what this short post is about. Shooting to me. Baseball to you, Mearns? Fine. Computers to you, my dear friend, Harry? Yes. Battlefield 3 for you, Mike? Ok. Old school knitting to you, mother? Go for it. I know who reads this.

This blog, in a sense, is not about shooting. It is about living. Do what makes you, you. Do not submit. Do not yield. Do what you love, and they cannot control you, those in power. That's what shooting is to me. That's what driving is. That's what we are. That's how we maintain control,

Live. I do it through shooting, You do it through some other means. So be it. That's life. It will never be taken away.