Speaking of presidential assassins and good marksmanship, I put on a demonstration the other day.
At a cookout with family, one of the boys had a legit Red Rider air rifle. They had some cans and a big piece of cardboard with targets drawn on it. This is a farm, plenty o land.
Someone started "hey lets get the Marine up there" with a sneer, figuring they would embarrass me or something.
"Cool."
I took the weapon, figured out how to use it. I'm wobbly on my nerve damage feet, so took a cross-legged sitting position. Called "can on the left." The targets were 18-20 feet out.
Plink, it fell on it's side, top facing us. "Now I'm going to put it in the drinking hole." Plink. One guy said "He did it," another said "Bullshit." I did it, easy shot.
I took a look at the cardboard, the kids had drawn a few 10-inch embedded circles like a target, with a single sharpie dot in the middle.
I said, "top right target, the dot in the middle."
There were sneers, and swigged beers.
I took a good few seconds taking my deep breaths, slowing down my heart beat. My eyes aren't what they used to be 30 years ago, so the blurry bits were more blurry than ever. I focused my eye on the front sight post, aimed at the center mass of the blur, deep breath, hold it, pull the trigger.
A hard trigger pull, by the way. An M-16 A2 has about a 3 pound pull. This thing was easily 4.5-5 pounds. Not an easy squeeze.
Anyway, I fired, and my cousin walked up to the target, and said "Oh my god."
Shot the dot.
I ended the demonstration, got up, and walked away from the silence, heh.
And my kid got to see it.
