USA’s three-time Olympic gold medallist Kimerly Rhode sticking to her guns

Kimberly Rhode won the skeet gold medal at the World Cup Final. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)

Barely minutes after topping her qualifying round, Kimberly Rhode is talking politics and gun laws. In a strange way, the setting seems ideal: a few yards away from her, cartridges are flying and clay targets are being shattered. A shotgun rests on the table in front of her as the loud boom echoes in the background every time the trigger is pulled.

Rhode, 38, is a shotgun legend. On Wednesday, she won the gold medal in the World Cup finals here. But in overall context of what she has already achieved, this is a minor accomplishment. The 38-year-old American shooter has won three Olympic gold medals – two more than India’s overall tally in individual sports. Last year, when she clinched the skeet bronze at the Rio Games, Rhode became the only athlete to win medals at six consecutive Olympics and the first Olympian to win a medal on all five continents.

Rhode is also an unwavering gun advocate. The soft-spoken Californian has been vocal about her views on one of the most divisive issues in the US — gun control. Every time there is an incident of mass-shooting, she is dragged into the debate, primarily because of the sport she pursues and the status she has achieved in it.

“Whenever there is an occurence, an unfortunate one – our hearts go out to all the victims and families – they call us (shooters) to comment. They don’t do that when there’s a swimmer and somebody accidentally drowns during the summer. They don’t call a NASCAR driver when there’s a drunk driver,” Rhode says.

Rhode, though, is not complaining. Instead, she calmly explains the reasons why she is such a strong proponent of the Second Amendment, which gives a US citizen the right to possess and carry firearms freely. “The reality is for some reason, people try to lump us together and that’s not really what our sport is about. It’s about responsibility, discipline, focus and how to be gracious winner as well as a gracious loser, because you won’t win every time,” she says.

Guns are her livelihood, she admits. It’s also a ‘heritage’ she wants to “pass on to her children and the youth.” “So I am very much for the second amendment,” she says with a smile. “For me, it’s very important to pass on what I do every day to my son.”

That’s one of the most important reasons she voted for Donald Trump. In fact, she served on US president’s coalition to advise him on second amendment issues. It was a committee formed days before the elections last year and, according to USA Today, was tasked with providing policy and legislative recommendations to the Trump administration.

Asked if she has directly given any advice to Trump, Rhode says: “I have been there since before he was elected president. We just advice and help him in anyway. If he has any questions, I am always there to help him out in any way I can. I have not spoken to him as far as…” she stumbles, before continuing, “I have spoken to his son but I don’t want to get into any of that.”

Rhode has also served on the board of USA’s National Rifle Association and is currently fighting a law called Proposition 63 (Prop 63, as Rhode calls it), which toughens California’s gun control laws. “I have done a lot of stuff, so I am very political in that sense,” she says.

She has used the sport as a platform to talk about the political issues surrounding it but she is consciously aware of shooting’s perception as a sport in today’s context. The call for tighter gun laws and the perceived ‘violent’ nature of the sport has put shooting’s position at the Olympics in a jeopardy. So much so that the International Shooting Sport Federation has also mulled with the posibility of introducing laser shooting at the Olympics.

“There’s going to be a lot of changes… But I don’t think laser guns will really work in this. For us, it’s about instant gratification. About seeing the target shatter; seeing the clay target break into a million pieces. Lasers don’t do that. It won’t happen in shotgun,” she says. “Who knows what the future holds but I don’t think it will ever go anywhere. Shooting’s been there since beginning, it will be there till the end.”