August 25, 2022
The Smallbore National Championships are over. One of the last matches this year is the Pershing Trophy Match. This is a match between the United States Smallbore Team and the British Smallbore Team. Although you would never know by watching, reading, or listening to the media, the National Matches and International Matches are steeped in tradition and camaraderie among shooters. There is no finer group of people around the world than competitive shooters. One of my first observations I made when I became a competitive shooter was that if shooters ran the world, it would be a much better place to live. The Pershing Trophy is an excellent example of the camaraderie and tradition that accompanies these matches.
The Pershing Trophy was established in 1931 in honor of American General John J. Pershing. The match is fired every eight years when the British Smallbore Team comes to the United States to compete in our National Matches. On alternating eight-year cycles, the United States Smallbore Team travels to Great Britain to compete in the Field Marshall Earl Roberts Match. In four years, the United States team will be in Great Britain. This year marks the 13th Pershing Trophy Match.
Competition is intense on the range but off the range shooters host dinners and receptions for each other and it is an all-around good time. I have found this to be the same in the shooting community no matter the method of competition or country represented. My experience is in pistol competition, but it is the same way. The Grand American National Shotgun Championships that were held in Sparta a couple of weeks ago was the same. I will say I have noticed shooting teams from South America have the best uniforms, particularly Brazil. We should try a little harder in the uniform department. This year, the United States won the Pershing Trophy Match by two points. Each team of ten shooters fires 400 shots for a possible score of 4000 points, with a total of 8000 possible points. As you can see, winning by two points means it was a close match.
The ISRA shooters and team members did very well this year in all of the rifle and pistol matches. Thanks for their hard work and dedication.
A would-be carjacker got a lesson from the Second Amendment school a couple of nights ago in Chicago. The would-be carjacker, Jarmari Edwards, tried to take a vehicle at gunpoint. The 45-year-old owner of the car was a licensed Illinois Concealed Carry holder. The carjacker received a bullet in his chest for his trouble. Edwards is charged with two counts of aggravated vehicular carjacking, discharge of a firearm and aggravated battery/discharge of a firearm. Oh well, we all have a bad day now and then.
In Arizona, a convicted child molester crawled into a 12-year-old girl’s bedroom in the middle of the night. Shortly thereafter, he got to meet the girl’s mother and her shotgun. Another happy ending.
The Second Amendment Foundation et al has filed a brief in the Maryland so-called assault weapons case. The case is known a Bianchi v Frosh. The State of Maryland bans certain types of semiautomatic rifles. Once again, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen has come to bear on overreaching gun laws. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has remanded the case back to the Fourth United States Court of Appeals and has been told to revisit their ruling on the case. Originally, they upheld the Maryland ban. This case will have a great impact throughout the Union States and will send a message to state and local governments trying to infringe on citizens’ Second Amendment Rights. This case will have impact here in Illinois, particularly. The Justices in the Freaky Fourth are a lot like the Justices in the Nutty Ninth. I expect this case to be back before the Supreme Court of the United States.
The NYSR&PA v Bruen is also impacting a denial of a permit case in Hawaii known as Young v Hawaii. George Young who is otherwise qualified has been twice denied a Hawaii permit to carry by the local police chief. The local police chief cited Hawaii law which allows him to do that. Mr. Young sued. He lost in the District Court, so he appealed his case to the nutty Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel upheld Mr. Young’s position in Hawaii and for an en banc panel which ruled against Mr. Young. The Supreme Court of the United States granted a writ of certiorari and agreed to hear the case. Now that the Bruen case has been decided, the case was remanded back to the District Court for rehearing which means they ruled wrong. If they don’t change their ruling, the case will go back to the nutty ninth and on to the Supreme Court once again. Many view this as a delaying tactic of the Ninth Circuit. In any case, Bruen is definitely influencing these and other cases.
The Massad Ayoob MAG 80 Course, September 7th-11th at our range, is an intensive study of defensive firearms that teaches extreme speed for hits, and includes shooting at greater distances, and management of such contingencies as weak hand draws, one-hand only reloads and malfunction clearing if wounded, etc. Students receive several hours of hands-on training in handgun disarming, and in countering attempts by an attacker to disarm them. Shooting while moving, and the use of long guns for defense, are among the areas covered. Round count: 500 handgun, 100 long gun. Prerequisites: MAG-20/Classroom plus MAG-20/Live Fire; MAG-40 or LFI-I. Contact Andy Kemp at 208-771-3413 or Andy1911@imaxmail.net
Tidbits:
August 24, 1944 – Paris is liberated after more than four years of Nazis occupation. The French 2nd Armored Division commanded by French General Jacques-Philippe Lecterc who was attached to American General George Patton’s 3rd Army, was given the honor of entering the city first. Adolf Hitler had ordered the city destroyed but German General Dietrich von Choltitz disobeyed the order.
August 27, 1859 – Edwin Drake finds oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Those areas of Pennsylvania became “boom towns”. Drake failed to patent drill pipe methods and he went broke. The State of Pennsylvania eventually granted him a small pension in recognition of his contributions to the state.
August 27, 1883 – The volcano Krakatoa erupts. Located in Indonesia, the Krakatoa was one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history. The smoke and ash sent into the atmosphere lowered the temperature of the earth by a couple of degrees for months. Maybe we should not clean all the smoke out of the atmosphere and reflect the sun’s rays back into space,
August 27, 1939 – German aircraft designer Ernst Heinkel successfully flies the world’s first jet aircraft.
August 28,1869 – Three members of John Wesley Powell’s expedition leave in fear of the rapids in the Grand Canyon. It was a fatal error on their part. They were killed by a party of Paiute Indians. The name John Wesley Powell is not a household name but maybe it should be, at least in Illinois. John Wesley Powell was a largely self-taught naturalist, geologist, and scholar. Born in New York, his family moved around the country. Finally, Powell became a schoolteacher. Powell attended college at the Illinois Institute in Wheaton, Illinois College in Jacksonville, and Oberlin College in Ohio. He never received a degree from any of them. He self-financed fossil hunting expeditions along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and studied the natural history and geology of the area.
When the Civil War broke out, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Shiloh and had to have his right forearm amputated. He returned to duty and was promoted to Major and was in charge of artillery batteries under General Sherman, and later, was on the staff of General Henry Thomas. After the Civil War, he took a teaching position at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington and later at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. He became curator of the Illinois Natural History Museum which was then at ISU in Normal, Illinois. In 1868, at the urging of General Sherman, Powell formed an expedition to explore the Colorado River and the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. He climbed Pikes Peak and did all the activities in this entire exploration while missing most of his right arm. The three members of the expedition were correct in the fact that it was tough going down the Colorado River. The explorers lost their food and lost one of their boats. Finally, Powell halted the expedition at what is now Lake Meade in Nevada.
Two years later Powell returned and finished the exploration. He produced the first reliable maps of the area. He went on to write a book on the languages of American Indians and was appointed the first Director of Ethnology (cultural anthropology dealing with the analytical study of cultures) at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1881, he was appointed the Second Director of the United States Geological Survey, a position he held until 1895 when he resigned. Powell correctly warned that over settlement of the arid west would lead to water shortages. He was very unpopular with many western developers from that point out in 1893, but he was right. In fact, in today’s news, California is paying people to tear out their grass lawns that need to be watered.
People like John Wesley Powell were the types that built the United States, quiet heroes that made all the difference. There are several grade and high schools within anywhere from 200 feet to a mile of where John Wesley Powell had his office in Normal, Illinois. I would be willing to bet none of those kids in those schools ever heard of him.
Thanks for being a member. If you are not already a member, join us today! Big things are just beyond the horizon, and we need your help.
For more information, visit www.isra.org
Upcoming Events:
Saturday, August 27, 2022
Armed Women of America
RSO Meeting
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Glock League
9th Annual Law Weapons Shootout
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Women’s Precision Pistol Practice Drills
Monday, August 29 & September 5, 2022
Military Bench Rest League
Tuesday, August 30 & September 6, 2022
Tuesday Night Irregular Rifle League
Wednesday, August 31 & September 7, 2022
F-Class Rifle League
Bench Rest League
Paper & Steel League
Thursday, August 25 & September 1, 2022
ISRA Smallbore Prone/F-Class League
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Private Event
Saturday, September 3, 2022
ISRA Steel Challenge
Sunday, September 4, 2022
Bonfield Muzzle Loaders
Black Powder Shotgun
ISRA 3Gun
Thursday, September 7 – Sunday, September 11, 2022
MAG-80 with Massad Ayoob
Saturday, September 10, 2022
Metric Smallbore Prone Championship
Sunday, September 11, 2022
Conventional Smallbore Prone Championship
Covert Carry Handgun
Gun & Trade Shows
Belleville Gun & Knife Show – Belleville, IL
Belleville Fairgrounds
Dates: August 27 & 28, 2022
Hours: Saturday: 9:00-5:00
Sunday: 9:00-3:00
Admission: $6.00
Westville Gun Show – Westville, IL
Fireside Event Space
Dates: September 10 & 11, 2022
Hours: Saturday: 9:00-5:00
Sunday: 9:00-3:00
Admission: Free
Kankakee Gun & Sportsman’s Show – Kankakee, IL
Kankakee County Fairgrounds
Dates: September 17 & 18, 2022
Hours: Saturday: 8:00-3:00
Sunday: 8:00-2:00
Admission: $6.00
Boot City Opry Guns, Knives & Outdoorsman Show – Terre Haute, IN
Boot City Opry
Dates: September 17 & 18, 2022
Hours: Saturday: 9:00-5:00
Sunday: 9:00-3:00
Admission: $5.00
McHenry County Gun Show – Woodstock, IL
McHenry County Fairgrounds
Date: September 18, 2022
Hours: Sunday: 7:30-1:00
Admission: $5.00