RECOIL Magazine Issue 47

I’ve only got two resolutions this year. I figure two is about all I can commit to and have some tiny chance of keeping — but they’re big ones.

The first is a vital step we all can take in order to preserve our gun rights. While it may seem simplistic in this election year when our country is sharply divided on every issue you can bring up at the family dinner table, by engaging with our fellow Americans on an individual level, we can counter much of the anti-gun propaganda paid for by sawn-off, Yankee tyrants.

Take someone shooting. The forces arrayed against us have no effective counter to this. There is no anti-gun range. So put a .22 in your neighbor or coworker’s hand and let them ring steel for half an hour, then offer up anything else in your collection for them to blast away with. Show them that shooting is safe, fun, and a fundamental part of our heritage. There’s no need to hit them over the head with politics — do your part, and they’ll come to their own conclusions.

The second item I’m committing to is to not be comfortable as a shooter, as a human, and as a professional. We’re all guilty of it in some way or other. At the range, we practice things we’re already good at, because it strokes our egos and improving on things we find difficult is, by definition, hard. We use a familiar workout because it’s achievable. This can carry over to our work life as well — you see it in other publications that churn out the same formulaic dreck wrapped in a pretty cover, put together by an editorial team who never seem to live the life they espouse.

So in September of this year, a small team of us will HALO into an area of the northern Rockies so remote it takes three days to reach it by horseback. The goal is to 1) not die, 2) put meat in our packs, and 3) exfil on some of the whitewater rivers in the area, by means of the packrafts we jump in with.

In order to fulfill those requirements, I’m going to have to master long-range precision marksmanship (an area where I’m currently weak), as well as learn to freefall from scratch and get fitter than I’ve been for a long time. We’ll document the whole project in print and on RecoilTV, so hopefully you’ll be able to see what works, what doesn’t, and maybe get some ideas for your own adventures.

RECOIL has always been copied by other publications. Let’s see them copy this..

Check out RECOIL Issue 47

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