Factories have been humming for the firearm and ammunition industry. Business has been brisk over the past couple months. Even ranges that were forced closed by the coronavirus pandemic are starting to reopen their doors. For two months, America has been cooped up, but life still seems to move at a dizzying pace.
But not on Memorial Day. On Monday, May 25, we pause.
Sure, businesses will be open. Even gun stores and ranges. Some will be open for the first time in months. It’s easy to understand why America is eager to get back to what life was like before lockdowns, facemasks and social distancing.
On this day, though, we pause.
Even if it’s for a moment. Maybe just an hour. Maybe it’s the quiet reflection with a couple close friends who share an understanding that in those moments nothing really needs to be said. They just know that on Memorial Day, we pause.
This year, Memorial Day is certainly different. This is a day normally spent decorating the headstones of lost friends. Arlington National Cemetery, where many of my fellow Marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen are buried, is closed to all but immediate families.
Those families will spend time with their lost loved ones. That doesn’t subtract from the debt of gratitude felt by those of us who served with them feel. The fallen swore an oath to defend our nation, our Constitution, our way of life and to defend one another. They fulfilled that oath to their last breath.
They gave the very best of who they were so we could be the very best of who we are. That is reflected in the character of our industry that continues to serve our nation’s military and during this time of crisis, has served our communities. Our industry, the firearm and ammunition industry, is full of veterans. My own experience isn’t unique. It’s not extraordinary. It is, however, fortunate. It’s made me, and our nation, deeply humbled and grateful.
We are an industry with an umbilical connection to our military. The factories that produce our favorite sporting rifles, shotguns and handguns also produce the arms our servicemembers carry into war. The flags that fly in front of our businesses are reminders of the terrible cost of freedom. The rights and freedoms we enjoy today are purchased with a heavy price. It’s truly a debt that cannot be fully repaid.
So, we pause. In that quiet moment, we remember. While we mourn their loss, we celebrate that such men and women lived. We also celebrate that in that brief time they lived, we lived alongside them. We heard their laughter. We comforted their pains. We shared their burdens and in their sacrifice we share their legacy.
We pause to treasure their memory. We pause to honor their commitment, even to the point of their own lives. It is entirely appropriate that, in the midst of a pandemic fighting a virus and the fears and concerns that go with it, we remember those who knew the dangers, who knew the fear and who knew the cost. Yet, they braved ahead anyway.
They are in our hearts. Forever young. Forever loved. Forever honored.
On Memorial Day, we pause because for however brief, we walked in the company of heroes. On Memorial Day, we honor them.
Mark Oliva is the Director of Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. He is a retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant with 25 years of service, including tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Albania, and Zaire.
This is the last time you clowns take down my post.
No Truth About Guns.
goodby.
Yeah, but now I’m curious what hate he spewed…
Probably some incel garbage.
Geoff, he said nothing that matters.
“Breathe Deep The Gathering Gloom”
I’ve no idea what the Moody Blues meant by that line but I am always impressed by how it fits into so many posts on the interwebs.
I have that vinyl. Through the decades, I’ve tried to figure out those lyrics. Stoned, sober, drunk, it doesn’t matter. It’s just some poetic stuff from a group of brits lucky enough to be born after the war.
Art Rock I think they called it. Good music though.
Moody Blues is one of those groups I have to really be in the mood to listen to, no pun intended. My taste in music is fairly wide ranging.
Sometimes you just gotta have ZZ Top. Other times only Bach will do.
Well, bye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0BTdo6qGwo
Meanwhile, out inboxes are full of “15% off memorial day sale!”. Sure thing they took a day off.
Amen…!
Memorial Day and May 15 – Peace Officers Memorial Day always remind me of the the truly exceptional people I served with through the years. G-d bless them…the living and the departed.
In the defense industry factory I work in, this is naturally a special holiday. Even so, not everyone can have a day off, or the more likely four day weekend Memorial Day has become. Volunteers are sought to maintain production processes that can never fully stop. America’s warriors need a constant flow of the tools and technologies being produced. Stopping simply does not work.
Especially when the primary customer base is Special Forces, for who there are no day’s off and for who the operational tempo in very bad places never relaxes.
All Gave Some, Some Gave All.
I always see people in cemetaries, and Arlington in particular, people walking right up to the headstone. I was always taught that walking on someones grave was bad form. Whats up with that. You either keep your distance or walk up to the stone from the side so you’re not walking all over the grave itself.
Just returned from Trexler Park. I have never seen the parking lot so full. Everything is still shut down, here, so people are getting their exercise instead of shopping. That is good. Retail diminishes the solemnity of holidays. Maybe with more time in the park, people will think more about the passion, pain, and sacrifice which this holiday honors.
If I dwell on it too long, tears form.
Good article.
Industry may pause, but no pause in the sale ads in my inbox.
Somebody else already made that point, you chubble butting bearded clam.
Tip: each comment has a timestamp on it, so if you’re that excited about it, you can compare to see the chronological order in which comments are made, rather than relying on the incorrect assumption that a later reply to a comment made earlier (and thus appearing further up on the comment thread) was actually made earlier.
If I wanted to listen to an asshole I’d fart.
Everyone should pause.
I wish I could say my job paused, but unfortunately it only does two days of the year. And they’re in back to back months, November & December. Kind of strange, not actually getting a single day off that honors our nation. Personally, ALL businesses should be closed for the nations Birthday, July 4th. The shooting range I frequent is closed on Memorial Day. Peace Be With all the Fallen, and also to ALL that have served.
On memorial day, my 3D printer still goes BRRR
The Democrat party pisses on our War dead every time they pass another gun law,
I hope the rest of the firearms industry understands this legacy? Because tyranny is returning to the United States. And everyone, and I do mean everyone, will have to make a choice. Freedom or slavery.
Hi Point refused to deal with Dick’s Sporting Goods.
The great outdoors show in PA couldn’t get any vendors to attend their event when they banned the AR15 companies.
Ronny Barret refused to sell his guns to anti-civil rights states.
The firearms industry should refuse to sell guns in California, New Jersey, and other slave state governments.
Auto maker Elon Musk in California understands this now. He got his “wake-up” last week from the local California government.
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