{"id":78934,"date":"2021-07-27T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=78934"},"modified":"2021-07-26T10:47:49","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T15:47:49","slug":"god-guns-and-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=78934","title":{"rendered":"God, Guns And Gold!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I haven’t honestly watched so much as a second of the Olympics – any <\/em>Olympics – since watching the biking events in 2012 while I was stuck sick in a hotel room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current Tokyo games have been marred by Covid hysteria and parts of the US Team mistaking their celebrity for a social mandate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are still some reasons to cheer. The US shooting team is not only taking home the jewelry…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

….but got a surprisingly evenhanded treatment from the left-leaning Guardian<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…marksmanship aficionados were treated to the slightly less refined spectacle of Piers Morgan sniping on Twitter<\/a> as an American won the first gold medal of the Rio Games and USA Shooting, the governing body, firing back by accusing the gun-control advocate of trolling.<\/p>

Morgan\u2019s facile argument: it is no wonder that a country of 330 million people with an estimated 400 million guns in circulation and a serious homicide problem is good at shooting. \u201cWhat we do out here on the skeet fields and on the rifle range has nothing to do with crime and violence,\u201d Matt Suggs, the chief executive of USA Shooting, said.<\/p>

The US is indeed the all-time medal leader, with roughly as many gold medals as the next three countries (China, Russia and Italy) combined. But Ginny Thrasher\u2019s first-day success in the 10-metre air rifle was the US\u2019s only shooting gold of the 2016 Games, while top-ranked Italy won four. Though the US has a large number of competitive shooters, they are not necessarily taking aim in the international disciplines featured in the Olympics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Because street criminals are the ones moving up to the Olympic team. And to think we accuse leftists of being bovine intellectual herd animals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having just shot skeet for the first time earlier this month, I’m a little in awe of my nephews’ facility at blasting clays – and a lot <\/em>in awe of the kind of shooting the serious competitors do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t honestly watched so much as a second of the Olympics – any Olympics – since watching the biking events in 2012 while I was stuck sick in a hotel room. The current Tokyo games have been marred by Covid hysteria and parts of the US Team mistaking their celebrity for a social mandate. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-rare-sports-post","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78967,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78934\/revisions\/78967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}