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          <font face="Verdana" color="#000099" size="1">
          <b><font color="#000000">NRO Weekend, September 23-24, 2000, National 
      Review Online</font></b></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
          </font>
          <b>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#990033" size="4">
          Dead Ringers<br>
          </font>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#999999" size="2">
          When it comes to Olympic shooting sports, TV is in blackout mode.
          </font></b><font face="Verdana"><br>
&nbsp;</font><p><font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="2">By
          <a target="_blank" href="http://www.davekopel.com">
          <font color="#003333">Dave Kopel</font></a> of the
          <a target="_blank" href="http://independenceinstitute.org">
          <font color="#003333">Independence Institute</font></a> </font>
      <font face="Verdana">&nbsp;</font><p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          <img height="24" src="T.gif" width="23">elevision these days may seem 
          like all Olympics, all the time. Besides the primary coverage on NBC, 
          CNBC, and MSNBC, you can catch anything you missed by watching your 
          local news, or one of the cable news channels. With some rather 
          notable exceptions.</font><font face="Verdana"> </font>
          </p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          Want to find out the story about the American teenager who thought she 
          was going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, but who came 
          back to win the first gold medal at the Sydney games? Or perhaps you'd 
          like to see the all-American teenager who won America's first gold 
          medal in Atlanta, and who, at age 21, earned a bronze on Tuesday in 
          Sydney. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          Well forget about it, unless you get your news from the Internet. You 
          see, these wonderful stories of American perseverance and triumph 
          involved the shooting sports. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">In 
          the Olympic tradition, the first medal is always awarded in a shooting 
          sport. This year, the first gold medallist was Nancy Johnson, of 
          Downers Grove, Illinois, in the ten-meter air rifle. As a 
          seventeen-year-old, Johnson had been told that she might have to spend 
          the rest of her life in a wheelchair, when her legs and arms 
          mysteriously began to atrophy.</font><font face="Verdana"> </font> </p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          But she fought back with physical therapy, and has been symptom-free 
          for two years. Now 26, she married fellow Olympic shooter Ken Johnson 
          two years in 1998. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">At 
          the 1996 Atlanta games, the first gold medal was also awarded to an 
          American: just a week after her 17th birthday, Kim Rhode of California 
          won the gold in double trap. Trap involves shooting a shotgun at 
          flying 4-inch clay disks. In double trap, two disks are flung in the 
          air, and the athlete has two shots to try to get both of them. </font>
          </p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">In 
          an interview in <i>Women &amp; Guns</i> magazine, Kim explained how her 
          father taught her to focus, while she was practicing her trap 
          shooting: </font></p>
          <blockquote>
            <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
            When I'd call for a bird, he'd tickle my neck or the back of my leg 
            with a blade of grass, or he'd toss a chunk of broken claybird onto 
            the field in front of me, just as the target was thrown. He 
            intentionally put distractions in my path � so I'd learn to ignore 
            everything else, and <i>focus</i> on the target. </font>
          </blockquote>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          She remembers sitting on her father's lap when she was three years 
          old, learning how to shoot her first gun. She started with a little 
          .22 rifle. In club competitions, she had to shoot prone, because she 
          was too tiny to stand up. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          When she was ten, she went big game hunting with her father in Africa. 
          The guide wondered if she was old enough to know how to really shoot. 
          So her father walked out 300 paces, and put a paper plate in the 
          ground. He shot a hole right though the middle. Kim promptly shot 
          three bullets through that hole. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          Kim Rhode started shotgunning at age ten, and soon after won the 
          California State Skeet championship. A few years later, she helped set 
          a new international team record in skeet. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          When not studying or shooting, Kim Rhode spends much of her time 
          giving motivational speeches to groups of young people. Her message is 
          this: &quot;Dreams really do come true, they do-so set your goal high, and 
          stay focused!&quot; </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          The tradition of American success in Olympic shooting goes all the way 
          back to the first modern Olympics, in 1896 in Greece. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          Two American brothers showed up: John and Sumner Paine. They hadn't 
          been told what the course of fire or the distances would be, or even 
          what kinds of rifles or pistols would be allowed. So the Paine 
          brothers brought along a trunk full of guns, and thousands of rounds 
          of different types of ammunition. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          Despite this handicap, John and Sumner Paine each won one of the first 
          two shooting events. </font></p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          After the King of Greece presented the Paine brothers with the medals 
          and olive branches, the two brothers withdrew from the rest of the 
          Games. The brothers explained that they wanted to give other athletes 
          a chance to win.</font><font face="Verdana"> </font> </p>
          <p>
          <font face="Verdana" color="#000000" size="3">
          Imagine what a better world it would be if American television worked 
          half as hard to laud models of sportsmanship like Nancy Johnson, Kim 
          Rhode, and the Paine brothers, as it does to publicize and glamorize 
          criminals who misuse guns.</font><font face="Verdana"> </font>

<hr>

      <p><font face="Verdana"><a href="../../2dAmendment.htm#Media">More</a> by 
      Kopel on media bias in coverage of gun control.</font><!-- #EndEditable --></td>
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