(thepandorasociety.com)
Hi folks, it’s Johnny Bullseye, your second amendment history reporter. Today as a special treat we’ll be interviewing Annie Oakley, one of the greatest marksmen that America has ever produced:
JB: Hello Annie.
AO: Howdy, Johnny. Er . . . could we make a mite change in my introduction?
JB: Sure, Annie.
AO: Well, pardner, I really like being called a “Markswoman“.
JB: Let’s see Annie, you can hit a playing card sideways, you can shoot off the ashes of your husbands cigar while he’s smoking it, you can riddle a playing card tossed in the air, you can snuff out a candle flame with a bullet . . . I guess you deserve to be called a Markswoman. Tell me, what got you started?
AO: Y’know Johnny, I come from poor folk. We didn’t have a lot to eat until one day when I was eight years old, I shot a squirrel for dinner. I got him plum through the head. That was so easy for me that I started puttin’ meat on the table every day. Then I just kept gettin’ better. Finally, I got so good that they matched me against a professional sharpshooter, Mr. Frank Butler, when I was only 15.
JB: I remember that, Annie, and I believe you won that match.
AO: I sure did and Frank was so impressed that he married me a year later. We both joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and toured the world. People really appreciated Markswomanship in those days.
JB: Tell me, Annie, is it important that woman learn to shoot guns?
AO: Shucks, yes it is! I’ve taught upwards of 15,000 ladies how to use a gun. It’s not only great physical and mental exercise, but it’s the only practical way a woman can defend herself.
JB: How’s that, Annie?
AO: Honey, when a man’s attacking a woman, and she pulls the trigger, she’s suddenly as strong as the meanest outlaw west of the Pecos.
JB: Annie, what would you say if you knew that about 100 years after your time woman could vote and even become U.S. Senators?
AO: Y’gotta be kiddin’!
JB: I’m not. Now what if I told you that in that future time, two lady senators from California not only didn’t want woman to learn how to shoot but wanted to confiscate all guns?
AO: What? Why if they was men, I’d call them polecats. Ain’t they ever read our Bill of Rights?
JB: If you could talk to them directly Annie what would you say?
AO: I’d say back off sisters! A lady needs to learn how to handle a gun just as she learns how to handle a baby. That’s the only way she can protect herself, her family, and her country.
JB: Thank you, Annie. This is Johnny Bullseye, your Second Amendment reporter, signing off for now.
* * * * * * *
[Editor: Mr. Bullseye assures us that, apart from the reference to modern Senatorial politics, Ms. Oakley really did say everything attributed to her above.]
* * * * * * *
—Wallace Schwam, MD is a retired internist with interests in geriatrics and pharmacology who trained at Duke University. He rated expert in marksmanship in the Army and continues to enjoy hunting and tactical training with handgun, rifle and shotgun.
All DRGO articles by Wallace Schwam, MD.