Derrick Mein’s commanding performance at the 48th World FITASC Championships in Lisbon wasn’t just another medal haul—it was a masterclass in the kind of disciplined marksmanship that the anti-gun lobby insists is impossible for private citizens to achieve. By dropping only nine targets across an entire week of grueling, high-pressure courses, Mein and his teammates Todd Hitch, Joseph Fanizzi, and Gebben Miles didn’t merely outshoot France; they demonstrated that American civilians, training on their own time and dime, can still dominate a discipline invented in Europe. That nine-target margin wasn’t luck; it was the cumulative effect of countless afternoons on U.S. club fields where the Second Amendment still lets citizens hone skills once reserved for soldiers and gamekeepers.
What makes this victory especially pointed is the political backdrop. While European sporting federations increasingly answer to governments that treat firearms as grudging privileges, American shooters operate under a constitutional presumption that the right to keep and bear arms is individual and fundamental. Mein’s bronze in the Open Division alongside the team gold underscores a broader truth: the same legal framework that lets millions of Americans own semiautomatic rifles also nurtures the talent pipeline that produces world-class clay shooters. Every range fee paid, every case of shells purchased, and every junior clinic sponsored quietly strengthens a culture of responsible, high-level proficiency that no top-down licensing scheme has ever replicated.
For the 2A community, Lisbon is both validation and warning shot. Validation, because it proves that private ownership paired with competitive pressure produces measurable excellence on an international stage. Warning, because the same activists who dismiss sporting use as a “loophole” are already eyeing FITASC-style events as the next regulatory target. If the United States wants to keep sending teams capable of nine-target victories, the fight isn’t only at the ballot box—it’s on the very sporting fields where that excellence is forged.
