“Top Shot” champion Chris Cheng has a gift for us all on America’s birthday: a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” … played with a suppressed .22 rifle and musical targets.
“Let’s go shoot some freedom!” Cheng says before he starts sending rounds down range. What a great way to celebrate our country and uphold one of our responsibilities on its behalf this holiday weekend, right?
In 2011, Cheng won the History Channel’s “Top Shot” prize, his first gun winnings ever, and left his job at Google the next year to shoot professionally. A lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, Cheng is also gay, and said in a 2013 post on the subject he wants to be “defined by my skills and accomplishments, not my sexuality.”
“One reason why I chose to come out publicly is that I’m a gay guy in a gun world,” he wrote. “Hunters, sport shooting enthusiasts, and collectors are too often stereotyped as part of efforts to politicize guns. Take it from someone who in a single package is not only gay, but Chinese, Japanese, California-born, a college graduate, a tech geek who worked on cool Google projects, a gun enthusiast and a passionate 2nd Amendment advocate. Our community is as diverse as anyone’s.”
Spoken like a true American. What a great country we have that still secures our fundamental human rights and personal freedoms better than any other country in the world today. There’s no place like home. Happy birthday, America!
