Category: Shooting

In M1 Carbine match, beating out 500 competitors. Well done!

That seems to be the question plaguing the chattering classes in the UK:

“Guns are weapons, not toys, and we have to do everything we can as a society to ensure that children and young people are protected from the accidental injury and death that they cause.”

A force spokesperson said: “The possession of firearms, shotguns and ammunition by young people is covered under the Firearms Act. Young people are subject to strict supervision while using a firearm and appropriate provisions must be in place before a young person is granted a certificate.

So it would seem they need the certificate even for supervised shooting, and now that’s apparently becoming controversial. As one shooter notes, “When we go to championships abroad the majority of shooters are in their late teens or early 20s. The sport is dying in this country because we have no young people coming through.” That’s exactly the idea. They don’t care, because the law is working exactly the way it was intended to work.

Before the Top Shot series, neither Bitter and I were watchers of reality TV. I don’t expect that to change, despite the fact that we both enjoy the show. But I understand better now what people like about reality TV. I think people can like it for different reasons, which is probably why the genre has been so successful. On one level, people can like it because people like heros and villains. Because everyone can choose different heros and villains, it provides people with something else humans enjoy doing: gossiping. On another level, people seem to enjoy living vicariously through their favoriate characters, as they struggle through the series. The level I think Bitter and I like it on is that it’s a pretty interesting social game, and the shooting aspect of Top Shot just provides a context we can more easily relate to and understand, more so than a series like Survivor would.

The problem with social games is they tend to be a little underhanded and dirty. Politics is really the great social game, and this is certainly true about politics. This also feeds the hero/villain aspect that many people find attractive. I’ve never been able to work up the same kind of animosity towards Adam Benson that a lot of other people did. He was merely playing what he thought would be a winning strategy. It got him far, but not to the end. His nemesis Caleb was also playing what he thought would be a winning strategy as well. Nothing wrong with that, I think, if you’re serious about winning.

So why are so many shooters upset with certain aspects of Top Shot? Probably because a lot of it violates our sense of good sportsmanship, and we’re used to thinking about shooting in that context. In a shooting competition we’d think someone behaving like Adam was a poor sport, and we’d expect that it would be the most highly skilled shooters that would come out on top. But Top Shot isn’t a shooting competition, but a social game — a political game — with guns. While I’ve no doubt many shooters would prefer to watch a pure shooting show, the variety of people Top Shot is appealing to is probably better for the movement, overall, than a shooting show not many people watch. As Caleb mentioned, “he didn’t call it an assault rifle, or a military rifle, or any of the terms you see the media slipping in to demonize these weapons.  What did he call it?  A semi-automatic sporting rifle.” And then people see the contestants use them in the same manner as any other rifle. You can’t pay for PR that good.

UPDATE: Maybe we can hope for a reality TV show one day that’s another type of social game. One that harkens back to an older, simpler time. Top Dueler?

3-Gun Nation. Looks interesting. Sponsored by SureFire. Since I live in Comcast Hell, I don’t get the Outdoor Channel that has all Michael Bane’s stuff (warning, stuff will auto play) unless I buy the super-duper premium arm and leg package.

Its there’s one person I’ve been pulling for in the Top Shot series, since fellow blogger Caleb was eliminated, it’s been Kelly Bachand. He’s very well rounded and a natural shooter, and just seemed to be like the kind of guy who could unexpectedly prevail. But this week, after sending yet another competitor home, he got to go first.

It turns out in this challenge, going first was the last thing anyone wanted to. I thought Kelly was setting the standard with a minute and a half, but that’s what got him eliminated, along with along with Adam. When you’re the last two people sitting on the bench, the last thing you want is to be betting on J.J. Racaza making a mistake. That didn’t happen. Tough breaks for Kelly and Adam, but that’s the way the bullet cuts the fuse I guess.

Apparently there’s a dead Canada Goose at Camp Perry, which happened when a gaggle of geese flew through the line of fire. Shot perfectly through the neck. You couldn’t make that shot at a flying goose with a rifle if you tried.

Last year I was attending a lot of matches. All our Thursday night silhouette matches, all the air silhouette matches on the 3rd Sunday or 1st Monday (depending on season), CMP at my club, a few practical rifle over at Langhorne, IHMSA on the first Sunday, and I was thinking of trying out more. But this year I’m lucky if I can get out to the weekend air gun matches. Much of it can be blamed on my work schedule, but there probably is such a thing as burning yourself out on something.

• But it’s all been valuable. If I have to run a match or shooting program at some point in the future, I have learned a few things:
• Don’t start your match too early. If you do that, you’re guaranteed not to attract people with demanding jobs who have to catch up on sleep over the weekend. I’ve discovered 10:00AM is a great start time for a match, though I would consider as late as 11AM. You want people to be able to get home for dinner, so you can’t go too late. I think too many clubs want matches early to free up ranges by the afternoon for casual shooting, but that disadvantages the match in terms of attendance.
• Have fun. This is probably the most important rule. If you look like you’re having fun, others are going to have fun. If they are having fun, they’ll keep coming to your match. They’ll tell other people the match is a lot of fun too, and it’ll grow.
• Have lunch. Nothing convinces people to show up to shoot like a free or very low cost meal. Our 3rd Sunday silhouette matches always feature food, and a kitty to donate to the cause of lunch.
• Be welcoming and helpful to newbies. Help them get into your sport. Make sure they know that everyone started out struggling, and that you can become competitive with time and practice.  See previous point about emphasizing fun over the competitive nature.
• Offer time to socialize. What’s good for that? See previous point about lunch. But at the same time a match that’s mostly standing around rather than shooting is no fun either. There has to be a good balance, for people to get to know each other, but still spend most of their time doing what they came there for.

There are obviously more things, but these are what I’ve noticed have been the difference between successful matches and less successful ones.

Apparently the Center for Biological Diversity and the American Bird Conservancy are pressuring EPA to institute a nationwide ban on lead ammunition. If this is such an “incontrovertible fact” then how come California Condors aren’t showing any drop in their lead levels after California instituted such a ban.

Thirdpower gives an account of his recent Appleseed experience. The program he described sounds unequivocally positive. I suspect there is a good deal of variation in the program, depending in who’s running it, but if Thirdpower’s program is more the rule than the exception, there’s not much wrong with it.