Top Shot competitor Chris Cheng

by Sandy Keathley
 
I read a sad commentary yesterday, on our current culture. There is a TV program on the History channel called "Top Shot". It involves a competition among marksmen, similar to those Top Chef type of cooking shows. The competitors use a variety of pistols and rifles, and are put through a number of different tests and scenarios. After several weeks, a top winner is announced; that person wins a large cash prize, a contract with the Bass Pro shops, endorsement deals, etc.

The recent winner for Season 4 was Chris Cheng, a young man who worked as a programmer for Google. In fact, he is self-taught in marksmanship, and learned by study, practice, more study, and more practice. As the season progressed, and he stayed in contention, he started having Q&A sessions at Google, so employees could talk to him about his experiences as a shooter, and as a contestant. A few were also curious about him, as, during the course of filming of the show, he had made the decision to come out as gay.

For people outside the world of shooting, it may be that there is a perception of shooting guns as a "manly" sport (despite the very large number of women competitive shooters), and Chris himself had some trepidation about his announcement. Instead, he found out that no one in that world treated him any differently. Competitive shooters' only concern was shooting, not PC nonsense.  To paraphrase an old drag-racing phrase, "when the hammer drops, the bullshit stops".

A visitor at one of his Q&A sessions, knowing this backdrop, commented to him:

"I have worked in Silicon Valley for over 20 years, and have always been accepted as a gay man, but I have been a closet gun owner for decades."

Chris responded: "There is more than one type of closet."

Indeed. Our culture now, in some areas, and especially at the corporate level, will ostracize someone for being a gun owner, in the same way that they used to ostracize people for being black, or gay, or female.

This will not end by itself. I encourage you to take a stand. Be a proud gun owner. Let people know about it. Join the NRA.