BIRDS OF PREY - Jeffersonian

SHOOTINGIRON
Mike “Duke” Venturino
TM
THUMB BUSTIN’
MUSINGS FROM
THE DUKE
Gun
Brutes
And
Louts:
Not!
This column doesn’t concern
handguns. It’s about
one three-year old girl and
hundreds of decent, gun owning,
human beings. Our leftist news
media loves to portray we “gun
people” — as I prefer to call us —
as nut cases. At best we’re considered
louts who go around shooting
up road signs while swigging beer.
At worse, the public in general is
told we’re dangerous brutes just
looking to shoot somebody.
Let me give you an example of
what real “gun people” are like. A
company familiar with all Black
Powder Cartridge Rifle (BPCR)
shooters is Montana Vintage Arms.
They are manufacturers of high
quality sights and telescopes used on
such rifles. An employee there, Lars
Waldeisen, has a beautiful daughter
named Lucy. During her three-year
checkup Lucy was found to have a
rare form of cancer. Treatment for
Lucy’s ailment has required traveling
from Montana to places as
distant as New York City. Of course
that means considerable expense for
the entire family.
In the spring of 2009, Montana
Vintage Arms, together with Shiloh
Rifle Manufacturing organized a
benefit raffle. The prize consisted of
one of Shiloh’s beautiful recreations
of a Sharps Model 1874 .45-70 rifle
fitted with both Montana Vintage
Arms’ target grade metallic sights and
one of their telescopes. Along with it
came a custom wooden box for the
telescope by Kansas woodworker
Harold Forcum and a bullet mould
by Montana custom maker Steve
Brooks. The most modest prize was a
hardbound copy of my book Shooting
Buffalo Rifles. Retail value of the
prizes was put at $4,500.
Doing The Good
Raffle tickets were priced at $50 each, which in today’s economy is not an
inconsiderable sum. As match director of the Montana Regional BPCR
Silhouette Championship in June 2009 I took 20 of those tickets to the event.
I had fears about being able to sell many, again due to the state of the economy
which our wonderful news media never tires of harping about. Those 20 tickets
didn’t last the first day. Then we had to take people’s money and addresses with a
promise to mail their ticket stubs to them. Be aware that my match was a small one.
We could only accommodate 64 shooters total.
Other BPCR matches did the same and word was spread about the raffle. Checks
for tickets came from far and wide, even from other countries. Drawing for the
raffle was set for July 16 th during the awards ceremony for the BPCR Silhouette and
BPCR Target National Championships. That was at the NRA’s Whittington Center
outside of Raton, New Mexico. Ticket buyers did not have to be present to win.
Now get this part. Several other people and I traveled to the “nationals” with
many ticket stubs belonging to other people. One and all those people had given
these instructions to us. “If I win, then I want you to go up on the stage and auction
the prizes to the highest bidder with all the money also going to Lucy.” That was
the sentiment of all these “gun crazy louts and brutes.”
Moist EYES
Lucy
And I want you to soak up this part
too. When Jim Gier, president of
Montana Vintage Arms took the
microphone at the time of the raffle
drawing, he informed us that 500 of
those $50 tickets had been sold. That
figures to $25,000 with every single
penny of it going to the Waldeisen
family. The cheer raised from the crowd
was enormous and looking around I
saw many grizzled looking middle aged
and older shooting competitors with
This was the prize, although we think Lucy is the
real prize! A Sharps Model 1874 .45-70 rifle fitted with
both Montana Vintage Arms’ target grade metallic sights
and one of their telescopes went to the lucky winner.
glistening eyes. Keep in mind too the
BPCR crowd is a relatively small one
compared to the numbers participating
in other shooting sports.
I don’t know the fellow who won
the raffle, nor even where he came
from. What I do know is that we “gun
nuts, brutes and louts” as a group are
honorable, decent human beings. And
I’m sick and tired of being
portrayed as anything else!
*
Thanks should go to: Montana Vintage
Arms, 61 Andrea Drive, Belgrade, MT
59714 and Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing,
PO Box 279, Big Timber, MT 59011.
24 WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010