I ran across this story in the New York Times:  Firing Line.  I didn’t really come across it as in I was perusing the New York Times casually, and all of a sudden went, ‘ah hah, this looks interesting’.  I found the link via a tweet from one of the random weird people I follow.  Anyway, it’s about Appleseed.  Which I guess you would call an organization, and they will train anyone a modest fee to learn how to kill people at 500 yards.  A skill that would hopefully have limited application in day-to-day life, but I believe you could simply say that they teach marksmanship.  With serious guns.  Behind all of this is what I would consider to be thinly veiled anti-government militia training group with a nice cop out to say they are, indeed, not that.  The story is a long one, but after reading it I could give them some benefit of the doubt, in that the actual process of this marksmanship training, or perhaps association with more moderate sentiments, seems to defuse the more devout…the crazies.  Seemingly it draws people back from a more dark place.  I like to think that they begin to realize the futility of what they fantasize about doing, or that some modicum of reality interacting with fantasy satiates urges.

All that was to point out that I also found this, somehow: The War Project.  I only read one story there, Sgt. George Zubaty’s story.  It’s compelling stuff, and you begin to understand that there are some hard-core motherfuckers out there, that aren’t showy about it.  They just are.  I had read this story before the one above, and as I read the one above I thought about how mistaken those fellows learning to shoot targets at 500 yards are; though to their credit they seem to be aware of it, at least those interviewed.   I’m not sure that I wanted to make any bold statements, only that I found the juxtaposition of the two stories interesting, and for some reason it seems they are both pointing out something important.  I’m not sure what.