Gunleaders Blog

Rudolph “Rudy” DiGiacinto passed away unexpectedly February 20th, 2013.  Rudy was the owner of www.virginia1774.org, a website and legal resource about the history of the right to keep and bear arms.  He was a lifelong outdoorsman, a craftsman with wood and leather, a rifleman, a marksman and a passionate advocate for the right to keep and bear arms.  He was also a very good friend.

I knew Rudy for just over 12 years, we met at a VCDL meeting.  His knowledge of the legalities of firearms ownership and willingness to share it got me interested and involved in activism.  Rudy had instructed Hunter Safety with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and handgun safety with the Piedmont NRA Instructors.  We taught many classes together there.  He was an incredible marksman with practically any firearm he picked up.  Black powder, modern, any type of action, revolver or semi automatic, it just didn’t seem to matter.  But there was one gun that got the better of him and he could never master it:  The M11 submachine gun.

No matter how much trigger time he got, he simply could not control the high rate of fire of a sub gun.  We would periodically remind him of this, calling him “Tree top” because most of his shots from a sub gun would have end up in the trees.  With any other gun though, he would repeatably poke single hole or tiny groups of shots.  He was a profoundly safe and competent gun handler with a very good presence and awareness.  More than once he spotted and corrected unsafe gun handling, keeping us all safe while shooting.

Rudy was a fine craftsman with wood & leather, fashioning several gun belts, holsters, a Brown Bess pattern musket from a kit & a black powder rifle he liked to shoot.  He also liked to take pictures and was fond of photographing Eagles & Ospreys on the Potomac River.

Rudy was politically active and excelled at research.  He unearthed many historical documents, documented a lot of the legal aspects of the right to keep and bear arms and specifically how the courts interpret statutes.  He was helpful in getting the National Park Service to repeal their ban on firearms, doing some of it through Congressman Tom Davis’s office.  Congressman Davis was no strong supporter of the right to keep and bear arms and many scoffed at the notion he would be of any help but Rudy and a few others managed to get Congressman Davis’s office to repeatedly intervene & get movement from DOI.  Rudy filed Amicus briefs in both the Heller & McDonald cases and was working on several more  over the years, including just a week before his passing.

I will always think Rudy first and foremost as a friend who I could count on.

Dave Yates