AmmoLand.com

USAMU Soldier Shooter Has London In His Sights
By Michael Molinaro
USAMU PAO

Staff Sgt. Josh Richmond, U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, gives instruction to a junior shooter from the Scholastic Clay Target Program March 11 at Hook Range. (Photo by Michael Molinaro, USAMU PAO)

United States Army Marksmanship Unit

FORT BENNING, Ga. --(Ammoland.com)- A dream that began in 2000 is closer to becoming reality for a Soldier from the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit.

Staff Sgt. Josh Richmond won a bronze medal in Men’s Double Trap at the 2011 Chile World Cup March 3 and with the points he earned in the match, he exceeded the threshold required to be nominated to the U.S. Olympic team for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

“It is an unbelievable feeling knowing that I have successfully reached the line in the sand,” Richmond said. “This has been a long time coming for me since I was a competitor in the last selection process, coming up just short for the 2008 team.”

Richmond has been there before but ended up on the other side of the line. He was making a good run for the 2008 team but one bad day of shooting along the way cost him one of two spots on Team USA that were eventually earned by two of his comrades in the USAMU, Sgt. Glenn Eller and Sgt. Jeff Holguin. Eller went on to win the gold medal.

“It was somewhat of a bitter sweet experience for me seeing my two teammates compete in the Olympics without me; however, we could not have sent a stronger team to the games,” he said.

“I learned a lot of lessons from that experience and have trained to help prevent them from happening again. More specifically I have gained the confidence and knowledge to overcome the pressures of competing on the international level.”

The milestone does not guarantee Richmond a spot on the team. If another shooter moves past him in points earned in international competition, then that shooter would earn the automatic slot. Richmond, currently ranked number-one in the world, is well ahead of those chasing him but has no intentions of taking his foot off the gas.

“From this point forward my goals really do not change,” he said. “Anytime I am competing at a world-level competition I have my sights set on the gold medal.

“The only thing that will change is we will start catering my training to the Olympics by running different situations and perfecting my equipment and mental state that I will use for the Olympic Games, assuming I will be named to the team this fall.”

Staff Sgt. Josh Richmond, U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, fires on a target March 3 during the finals of the Double Trap match at the Chile World Cup. (Photo by Ricardo Vidal Crisostomo)

Ask any athlete the secret of their success and undoubtedly they will all answer that it is the support they received along the way. Richmond, a native of Williamsport, Pa., said he has many to thank and the added bonus of being a Soldier allows him to have the benefit of being supported by not only his god-given family but also his Army family.

“Without the support of the USAMU and the team, these achievements would be impossible to reach,” he said. “It is a great advantage to work every day with Olympians and world champions. Every day I step on the line I am reminded by the level of teammates that I have which only makes us as a group stronger. It is also a huge advantage that when competing overseas we still work as a group and push each other so we all succeed.”

“I have a long list of individuals that I credit my success to, starting with my family,” he continued. “Without them investing time and money into what was once a family hobby there is no question that I would have never gotten these great opportunities. I have had many coaches over the years: Bud Greevy, Dan Carlise, Dean Clark, Dan Vitchoff and Bob Duvall. Each one of these coaches has had their own foot print in my success and will continue to train with me until we reach our ultimate goal of an Olympic medal.

“And last and most important I would like to mention is my wife and son. They are the ones who have patiently stood by and accepted this demanding and hectic lifestyle. They have sacrificed the most on this equation of supporters and they have their sights set on an Olympic gold medal.”

While the success on the line cannot be underestimated, it is not forgotten that he wears an Army Combat Uniform every day and not a Team USA shirt. This will ring true when this fall, with or without that Olympic slot wrapped up, he is scheduled for deployment with fellow USAMU Soldiers.

“I am excited to deploy this fall,” he remarked. “I actually have planned this into my training plan no matter the outcome of my position on the Olympic team or not. I think this is a great opportunity for me to have this experience prior to competing in the Olympics. I look forward to serving in a combat zone with my brothers in arms.”

“I am extremely proud of Staff Sgt. Richmond, not only for his tremendous accomplishments in showcasing the Army in support of recruiting and accessions, but also his personal courage in volunteering to contribute in this unit’s important marksmanship training effort in Afghanistan,” said Lt. Col. Daniel Hodne, commander, USAMU.

Richmond’s next match will be at the second World Cup event of the year in Sydney, Australia at the end of the month, where he looks to put more distance between himself and those chasing him.

About USAMU:
The USAMU enhances the Army’s recruiting effort, raises the standard of the Army’s marksmanship proficiency, and supports the Army’s small arms research and development initiatives in order to raise the Army’s overall combat readiness. For more information on the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, contact the Public Affairs Office at (706) 545-5436, Michael.Molinaro@usaac.army.mil or www.USAMU.com.

Filed under: Competitive Shooting News, Featured Articles by Ammoland No Comments »

NRA Letter to President Obama

National Rifle Association

FAIRFAX, Va. --(Ammoland.com)- Dear Mr. President:

We read your editorial submission to the Arizona Star. However, to focus a national dialogue on guns — and not criminals or mental health issues — misses the point entirely. Americans are not afraid of gun ownership. To the contrary, they overwhelmingly support the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms. The primary reason why tens of millions of Americans own firearms is that they fear violent criminals roaming the streets undeterred.

We agree with your assertion that “Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing” in light of the shooting in Tucson. In truth, the professional corps of gun control lobbyists moved with lightning speed to exploit the tragedy. These included the Violence Policy Center (“In the wake of these kind of incidents, the trick is to move quickly”), the Brady Campaign (“Gabrielle Giffords Shooting ‘Inevitable’”) and Mayors Against Illegal Guns-MAIG (“Bloomberg, Mayors Outline Steps to Help Prevent Another Tucson Shooting”). Your article contains talking points nearly identical to the ones circulated by MAIG for weeks in pursuit of its longstanding gun control agenda. In contrast, it was the National Rifle Association that avoided “playing politics with other people’s pain” with our consistent response that only thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families were appropriate in the immediate aftermath.

We also agree with your statement that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. Your record as a public official, however, is anything but supportive of the rights of law-abiding gun owners. In fact, when Congress had an opportunity to voice its support for the basic right of lawful Americans to own firearms, you refused to join a bipartisan majority of more than 300 of your colleagues in signing the congressional amicus brief to the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. In addition, you previously stated (and have never retracted) your support for both Washington, D.C.’s and Chicago’s handgun and self-defense bans that the Court rightfully struck down in Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. Further, you surrounded yourself with advisors who have advocated against the Second Amendment for years (Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel, to name just a few) and you nominated Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of whom has already attempted to eliminate the Second Amendment right entirely. More recently, you selected Andrew Traver to head the BATFE, despite his long-standing association with groups that support onerous new restrictions on our rights.

If you do in fact believe the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right, we suggest you demonstrate that in your policies and those of your Administration, which you have not done to date. Simply saying that you support the right to keep and bear arms is mere lip service if not put into action.

The government owes its citizens its most vigorous efforts to enforce penalties against those who violate our existing laws. The NRA has members proudly serving in law enforcement agencies at every level. Rank and file law enforcement want to arrest bad people — not harass law-abiding gun owners and retailers.

As for enforcing the laws on the books, we strongly suggest you enforce those that actually take violent criminals off the streets. To start, we urge you to contact every U.S. attorney and ask them to bring at least ten cases per month against drug dealers, gang members and other violent felons caught illegally possessing firearms. By prosecuting these criminals in federal court — rather than state court — strong sentencing guidelines would apply and charges would not be plea-bargained or dismissed, nor would criminals be released after serving only a fraction of their sentences. This simple directive would result in roughly 12,000 violent criminals being taken off the streets every year. Surely you agree that this would be a good first step.

Unfortunately, your Administration is currently under a cloud for allegedly encouraging violations of federal law. We suggest that you bring an immediate stop to BATFE’s “Fast and Furious” operation, in which an unknown number of illegal firearm transactions were detected — and then encouraged to fruition by your BATFE, which allegedly decided to let thousands of firearms “walk” across the border and into the hands of murderous drug cartels. One federal officer has recently been killed and no one can predict what mayhem will still ensue. Despite the protests of gun dealers who wished to terminate these transactions, your Administration reportedly encouraged violations of federal firearms laws — and undermined the firearm industry’s concerted efforts to deter straw purchases through the “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” program. We hope you agree with our belief that this burgeoning scandal merits a full and independent investigation.

There are additional steps you can take to prevent tragic events such as the Tucson shooting from occurring in the future. One of these is to call on the national news media to refrain from giving deranged criminals minute-by-minute coverage of their heinous acts, which only serves to encourage copycat behavior. If media outlets won’t show a fan running onto the field during a baseball game because they don’t want to encourage that behavior by others — surely they can listen to law enforcement experts and refuse to air the photographs, video messages, or Facebook postings of madmen and murderers.

Another step is to encourage people to report red flags when they see them. In the case of Tucson, a man clearly bent on violence was not reported to the proper authorities by those who had good reason to believe he had serious mental problems. That’s not a deficiency in our gun laws, it’s a deficiency in our mental health system — and should be treated as such.

In closing, we agree that gun owners in America are highly responsible. This is in large part due to the NRA’s 140 years of dedication to promoting safe and responsible gun ownership, an effort on which we take a back seat to no one. We welcome any serious discussion on policies that focus on prosecuting criminals and fixing deficiencies in the mental health system. Any proposals to the contrary are not a legitimate approach to the issue.

Sincerely,

Wayne LaPierre
Executive Vice President
National Rifle Association

Chris W. Cox
Executive Director
NRA-ILA

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

Filed under: Featured Articles, Gun Rights News by Ammoland 7 Comments »