Wow! I haven’t had this much discussion about me on the Internet for ever winning a match before. Brian called me and said I’d better take a look at this mega storm of discussion for my being D.Q’d 48 hours after the match was over.
Actually my first response on hearing I was being D.Q’d was hoping that no one had seen my weak performance of 205 seconds, but everyone had already seen that mess. I’m just going to tell what actually happened at this Nationals. But it might make things clearer if I tell a little prequel of how I got on ‘John May’s’ “s” list and probably for good reason. At the 2004 Nationals I showed up wearing a drab grey and tan outfit, trying to blend in with all the rest of the IDPA shooters.
I thought I had this really cool way of doing a retained reload straight into my right side pocket of my vest. I did this reload on the Standards and the S.O. couldn’t believe how fast it was and I showed him how I did it. He thought it was pretty ‘cool.’ A few stages later I was shooting a stage where I was sitting in a car and had to shoot 5 targets, 2 shots each to the body and one shot each to the head. Before I shot it I asked the S.O. if it would be OK to dump the 11th round in one of the targets heads and then reload and shoot the other heads. He said “no problem.”
I asked him a couple of times to make sure it was ok. Each time he said “yeah, yeah, yeah, enough already.” When I was done shooting the stage he said “good time, but one procedural.” I said “why?” He said “you shot the wrong head.” So like a typical IPSC shooter I wanted to talk to the Match Director. When the Match Director showed up we didn’t bother even discussing the car stage. He asked if I did a reload into my vest pocket on the Standards. I said “yes.”
He reached over and zipped up my pocket and said “that’s not legal and you can’t do that here and I should give you a procedural for it.” I said “I asked everybody in IDPA that I know and read the rule book and found nothing prohibiting it.” He said “you can’t do it. It’s not legal.” Maybe he is right, I’m not totally sure, but that put me on his personal “s” list.
I made a lot of mistakes that year. I was told not to ‘air gun’ once and I was told “you can’t kneel,” but I made a mental note each time I got a procedural not to repeat it.
Now fast forward to this match. I heard the weather this year was going to be extremely hot and humid so I borrowed a shirt made by ‘Techwear’ that is extremely comfortable in hot humid weather. When I got out of the car, the morning of the Match, I heard Dave S. say “Wow, Taran, why don’t you just wear a bullseye on your back.”
When he said that I thought to myself, “does this Sport still have the extreme prejudices against IPSC shooter it had when it first started?” I really thought “no, because at our major and local USPSA matches we are always hoping for IDPA crossovers and welcome them with open arms. Walking around this match with that World Shoot USPSA.org shirt on I could tell really turned a few heads and cocked a few eyebrows. My goal at this Match was to try not to incur any procedurals and just do what everybody else did. I didn’t air gun any stages or kneel down to look at angles as I saw other shooters do on stage 14, ‘Bad Bus Ride’. Of course when I taped targets I didn’t walk by with blinders on. I tried to see as I walked by angles of targets like any other shooter that wants to get the best result.
Are we supposed to believe anyone that cares about their performance doesn’t care to know where any of the targets are or where to shoot them from? The only procedural I got by any S.O. was on ‘Stage 9, Clear the Deck’ and was totally founded. When I was backing up shooting the 3 targets I did stop my movement when I shot the last shot on the target.
Mark, Mike, Fred and Jerry were the S.O’s on that stage and they just happened to be the nicest S.O’s of the match. If Mr. Murphy (Murphy’s Law) was telling the truth about me being some ‘ravenous, gaming, law breaking, rule breaking, underhanded unsportsmanlike, cheating, raging A’hole, then why wasn’t I riddled with dozens of procedurals and failures to do right throughout the match?? It doesn’t really make sense, does it?
If anyone wants another opinion of how I acted at this match ask your own Arkansas local shooter, Bobby Spradling. He is the only one in my squad I can remember his last name. The only highlight of this match for controversy, that I recall, other than being asked to move my ‘mag pouch’ back on ‘Stage 15’ was the ‘El Presidente’.
I will tell you know exactly what happened on that Stage. I was called up as the first shooter in the Squad on the ‘El Presidente’. I was standing waiting to shoot and I started to contemplate whether I should turn right like I usually do, or left which would clear the vest better for the draw. I did reach down and touch my gun. All I had in my head was ‘just don’t air gun anything. The S.O. was over talking with the M.D. who was watching me from his ‘quad’ and suddenly the S.O said “hey, what are you doing?” I said “Uuuuugh…” He said “were you thinking of shooting this stage?” I thought to myself, what else would I be thinking about, prancing through lily pads and dandelions? He said, again “were you rehearsing the stage?” I said “yes. I was definitely thinking about shooting the stage.” He said, “OK. One procedural. Now shoot the ‘El Presidente’.”
After that they ran me through the other two little Stage 2 and Stage 3. When I signed the sheet the S.O said to me “hey Taran, I’m sorry about that. I had no choice because the M.D. asked me to give it to you. Other shooter did the same thing during the day and only got a warning.”
It was only 3:00 P.M. so I decided to watch Dave and Juliie finish shooting on Stage 6 and 7. During that hour or so that I watched them shoot I saw John May driving up so I stopped him and told him “that I was sorry for my mistake.” He said “it’s alright. Just, there is no rehearsing the Stages.” I said “I will definitely do better next time.” He said “OK”
Two days later, on Saturday, at about 4:00 P.M., California time, I get a call to call John May “immediately.” I called him and he informed me that I was being ‘disqualified tonight for gross unsportsmanlike conduct.’ I asked him “Why?” He said “just from things people said about you and what I witnessed during the match.” I asked him “what was it that you witnessed?” He said “I saw you rehearsing the El Presidente and I told the S.O to give you a procedural.” I said “I got a procedural for that. What else did I do? He said “you were witnessed rehearsing stages after that which is what upset me.”
I said, “that’s pretty interesting since that was the last stage of the match for me.” He said “there is nothing more to discuss about this, you are being D.Q’d “
I just don’t understand why I wasn’t D.Q’d during the hour I stayed around and talked to the Match Director. Why was it 48 hours later? I can visualize all these guys out having beers, yelling “hey, how ‘bout that ‘sombitch’ with that ‘yankee’ shirt on.”
This whole scenario is not worth the attention it is getting. Shooting this Match felt like being a black man in a 1941 golf tournament, wearing that USPSA shirt. The rule of IDPA if you started in IDPA and go to IPSC you can always come back with open arms in the same way Michael Jackson will always be accepted by African Americans even though he now is ‘whiter’ than a ‘white man.’
I do not appreciate anyone labeling me with “grossly unsportsmanlike behavior”. I have been shooting for 15 years and no one – no one - has ever seen me display ‘gross unsportsmanlike behavior – or come even close to putting that kind of a label on me. If that were true it would have most certainly been displayed during the 15 years I have been shooting, and it never has.
If anyone out there actually witnessed me doing something “grossly unsportsmanlike” call me at (805) 520-3624
Taran Butler
