“For an hour, instructor Dan Boyle, K-Dan for short, walks the [Project Appleseed] group through a fractured history of the American Revolutionary War. The group discusses the Minutemen, and Paul Revere, as well as the Boston Massacre (‘How do we know a British soldier fired the first shot? Because he missed!’),” metro.us reports. “The group talks about self-reliance and the evolution of guns and rifles over the past two hundred years and Dan explains the component parts of a model .22 rifle that he holds in his hands.” So far, so good, right? Aside from the unnecessary slam against our British overlords. But then K-Dan is off and running in an entirely different direction . . .
“The first step is to be honest about what a gun is,” says Dan. “When people say, ‘it’s just a tool.’ That’s a bit disingenuous, in my opinion.”
People who use the word disingenuous are a bit disingenuous, IMHO. They’re telling people that someone’s pulling the wool over their eyes while pulling the wool over their eyes. Like this . . .
One student, the wife of another attendee, explains that while she is terrified of the power of guns, her husband wants to buy one and she wants to learn more before they make the purchase. She is exactly, Dan points out, the kind of person that Apple Seeds is trying to reach.
What Appleseed says that they are about, beyond the history lesson and target practice, is “personal responsibility.”
For Dan, the choice of that responsibility lays with gun owners. It’s how, rifle in hand, he can point to a box of Zombie target posters in the basement and reduce the targets to the ugly truth that are, without betraying the ideals that brought him here to teach in the first place. That, the zombie posters are often referred to as stand-ins for “liberals” within the community of extreme second amendment supporters.
“I find the whole ‘Zombie’ thing in poor taste,” said Dan. “It impersonalizes the other side. It’s absolutely threatening to people who don’t agree with you, when these Pro-Second Amendment guys who stand around talking about how ‘Liberalism is a disease,’ and then in the next breath talk about zombies. It’s not difficult to make the connection. I mean, what are we talking about? We’re talking about killing our neighbors. I find it embarrassing.”
So people shooting at Zombie targets are actually shooting at liberals? Who knew? I thought the undead’s main appeal in the target department lies in the idea that they’re beyond politics or, for that matter, morality. Being dead and all. More to the point, does “K-Dan” actually exist? If not, the antis would have to invent him.
“Liberty taken to the extreme is not a good thing,” Dan said to the class, laying out what might be Project Appleseed’s most important lesson of all. “We are not ‘armed,’ the 2nd amendment not withstanding, against our government with weapons. What we are armed with is information and the vote,” adding before he dismisses class, “if you ignore your rights they’ll go away.”
Liberty taken to the extreme? Not armed against our government? Who is this guy and WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY APPLESEED INSTRUCTOR? Note: there’s not a single pic of “K-Dan” in the photo gallery. Hmmmm. [h/t b0bb33z3r]