WANECO - Kerwin Law is a man after Teddy Roosevelt's heart.

Back in 1903, the Rough Rider enthusiastically backed the establishment of a vast national shooting competition called The National Matches. Roosevelt said we should always strive for peace but be ready for war. The 26th president, looking his usual pugnacious self, stares out from a poster given pride of place in Law's Owaneco Motorcycle Service repair shop.

"The first step in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come, is to teach men to shoot," the poster's wording indicates, not sparing us from the president's cumbersome syntax.

Mr. President, consider Kerwin Law fully prepared.

This year's National Matches were held in July at the Ohio National Guard's Camp Perry, and Law came home having shot so well he made the cut for the President's Match. That meant he finished in the top 100, competing against more than 1,200 of the best rifle marksmen, civilian or military, coast to coast.

The gold medal he received for that is added to the awards he's won at previous competitions: these include the National Rifle Association's High Master award and the Civilian Marksmanship Program's Distinguished Rifleman award. He got the High Master in 2004 after shooting his way to 97 percent of the available points in several tough events, and he had to finish in the top 10 percent over various competitions to nail the Distinguished Rifleman. He concluded his Rifleman qualifying in 2006, having had a great summer's day shooting that promptly saw him keel over from heat exhaustion when he was done.

He's clearly the kind of Law that's tough to break. And all he had to do this year to make the cut for the President's 100 was fire 10 shots in 10 minutes while standing and aiming at a 7-inch-wide bull's-eye 200 yards away. Then, stepping back 300 yards, he has 70 seconds to blast the target with another 10 shots, fired after dropping from a standing to a prone position and, just for fun, the rules say you have to change magazines once, as well.

In the final round, he's given 10 minutes to fire 10 shots at a 12-inch bull's-eye 600 yards away.

That's not a misprint: 600 yards. The .22-caliber high-power AR15 rifle he built himself, which looks like a military M-16, is held by hand, no rests allowed and no telescopic sights. Just Law, his laser eyeballs and a couple of metal gun sights. This stuff is so difficult, shooters consult complex tables telling them how many degrees, measured in minutes, to adjust the sights to allow for "X" amount of wind speed. It's like a math test where you get to shoot your homework.

And with more than 1,200 people doing the shooting, accomplishing everything takes awhile. Law waited nine hours to take enough turns to fire his 30 shots, squinting away at those tiny targets buffeted by wind and shimmering in the heat haze.

"The 12-inch-wide center target is part of an overall 5-foot-wide target to help you see it," he says. "But, at 600 yards, it's still like centering a BB on the end of your sight."

The target is marked with concentric rings, the innermost circle being worth 10 points and so, with 30 shots, you can get a theoretical maximum of 300 points. The Owaneco motorcycle repairman's shooting earned him 286 points for an 83rd spot overall. He would have finished 51st except the scorer missed counting one of his earlier shots. He was allowed to take one more shot that wasn't as good and that dropped him two points, all that was needed to take his final placement from 51st to 83rd.

It was a tough break, but he still was in the top 100 and returned home shot through with a profound sense of elation and sporting a Roosevelt-style grin. "So driving a 1,100-mile round trip and taking nine hours to shoot 30 shots - or rather 31 shots in my case - was worth the effort," he says.

"In National Rifle Association service rifle shooting, which is what I do, the President's 100, the High Master and the Distinguished Rifleman is like winning the World Series, the Super Bowl and the Stanley Cup. That is why I wanted them."

Retired Decatur police officer Jim Ward accompanied Law to Camp Perry and shot the President's Match with him. It was Ward's first time and he scored 208 to finish 1,145th overall, which he didn't think was too shabby. As for Law's performance, Ward struggles for the right words to describe it.

"This man has worked hard to earn this for years," says Ward, 64. "He practices and practices, and I marvel at the amazing way he is able to hold that rifle so steady. What he has accomplished he has earned, every bit of it. The man is just phenomenal."

Perhaps surprisingly, Law isn't ex-military. He got interested in military-style rifles through his father, who was a veteran of Korea and talked longingly of his old M1 Garand, a famous weapon that gave GIs an edge in many crucial battles. Law began collecting military weapons and now has Army rifles dating back to 1896, maybe owning one used by Roosevelt and his Rough Riders galloping up San Juan Hill.

"You just wish the thing could speak," he says.

Law senses the weight of all this history when he is shooting competitively. He feels proud of the mystic chords of memory that reverberate back through the centuries to the time when farmers first grabbed their trusty muskets from the fireside and went off to fight the Revolution that forged a nation.

He says America enjoys many freedoms and, like it or not, those freedoms were often won or defended at the point of a gun. He says having a citizenry that at least knows "which end of a rifle the bullets come out of" helps protect those freedoms, and tyrants will think twice before taking on families who can defend themselves.

Back in the day, the encouragement of these shooting skills would prompt Roosevelt to send a letter of congratulations to marksmen who aced the President's Match, and latter day presidents also have signed certificates of recognition. Along with his shiny President's Medal, Law received a nice certificate that has a conspicuous space at the bottom where a president's signature could be, but is not.

"The guy we've got now isn't really gun-friendly," he says. "Maybe the White House will send something later, but I seriously doubt that."

Law looks up and meets the eyes of Roosevelt gazing out of his poster and doesn't seem too disappointed: the shooting star knows the old man would be proud.

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WonderWonder

I suppose we should give this fellow credit for mastering the skill of shooting. However, his parting shot at the President for being less than "gun friendly" is uncalled for. Frankly, it's about time we had someone in the White House who will not toe the NRA's line. I am never at a loss for amazment when I hear these people prattling on about how more people with guns and a knowledge of how to use them is going to make us all safer. What nonsense. Guns have a sole purpose in the real world –– to kill living things. These are not sporting goods. I would not collect guns anymore than I would collect electric chairs or sample Guillotines in order to perfect my skills in switch throwing or beheading. I find it peculiar that anyone would have an interest in killing machines.

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Retards like this really chap my ass.  I suppose this loser doesn't have a car because you could run someone over with it, as well as knives, which are only made for cutting things up.

Guns have a sole purpose in the real world –– to kill living things.