A few years ago, some of us formed a committee in Federal Way to honor first responders. We found out that folks like that don’t want to be honored.

I know a guy in the shooting community who is like that. He won’t even let me mention his name. It took him several years to organize a series of shooting events in the Renton area. He recruited range officers from local shooting competitions and convinced a shooting range to let those with various levels of skill come in and participate in “action shoots” that involve drawing pistols from the holster, shooting on the move and shooting from cover. The events include rifle and tactical shotgun drills.

The man who organized so many opportunities to practice advanced defensive skills works full time as a registered nurse at a major hospital. There are others involved who come from nearly every other occupational category. They recognize that combat shooting skills are not just for professional military and law enforcement or a few elite competitors.

The Second Amendment is not just an abstract constitutional concept. It is a stake we all have in our American heritage that needs to be exercised on a regular basis in order to achieve greater skill at arms.

The Armed Defense Training Association members are busy working around Federal Way toward similar goals, but we have only just begun some very difficult projects.

So what is so heroic about all these activities? Aren’t we just talking about a bunch of enthusiasts who like to shoot guns the way some people climb mountains, play golf on weekends or enjoy fly fishing? Maybe competition shooting is like that for some people. There are matches where some pistols cost over $3,000. Such pistols are called “race guns” and are about as close to a normal firearm as a drag racer is to the everyday vehicles that most of us drive to work.

Many of the men and women who conduct the action shoots have put in many hours setting up the courses of fire and organizing events. The events involve experienced expert shooters performing drills right alongside novices.

Some of the same men and women may save your child’s life or help out in our communities if we experience a time when the police have their hands so full that first response units are overwhelmed. There are volunteers creating all kinds of emergency response capabilities in Federal Way and all over the United States.

It’s not so much about firearms as it is about the American way of life and holding on to what we have inherited. I started to mention that we inherited our freedoms from our forefathers — and I had to stop. Many of the “action shoot” volunteers — including the unnamed man who started the events in Renton — are Asian-Americans. There are also African-Americans, Hispanics and other nationalities participating in the events. Every ethnic group that comprises our American melting pot can claim freedom as their inheritance.  Freedom and volunteerism go together, and inalienable rights didn’t just spring from under the wigs of Anglo-Saxon lawyers in colonial times.

The United States of America is just the first modern nation where we got it all down in writing.