Month: March 2009

Joe is a little insulted about the whole Scoutten-Boomershoot kerfuffle, and says:

In his followup comment he says he doesn’t want put anything “on TV that could alarm the anti-gunners”. I disagree. I am of the opinion that alarming them over Boomershoot then making fools of them is the more appropriate tactic (ask me sometime in private how we have baited them but they failed to take the bait). But if he doesn’t want to do that I don’t see a reason to attack him over that judgment call.

I think some would probably assume, based on my general support for not pushing beyond the general public’s comfort zone and understanding, that I believe it should never be done.  That is not correct.  I believe pushing too far is unwise, but you have to push some, otherwise you never move the ball forward.

Scoutten has some legitimate concerns about public perceptions, but I think his thinking is not necessarily clear about what perceptions we ought to be concerned about.  The overwhelming message we want to get across is that the shooting sports are safe and fun, that gun ownership and interest in shooting is not abnormal or unhealthy, and that it’s perfectly natural for people to want to defend themselves, their families and their communities.

We must be concerned about public perception when trying to do this, but that perception needs to be tailored toward getting people to overcome their prejudices about gun owners and people who shoot.  We properly eschew presenting people shooting in camo, shooting at an old, beat up school bus, or many of the other things Jim mentioned because they reinforce rather than break down prejudices and stereotypes.  Without proper context, context which is not possible to present in a short TV segment, people do not understand what the are seeing and wonder what these people are preparing for.

When I look at an event like Boomershoot, I see something that attracts people from all walks of life.  I see something that’s organized and put together by someone trained and licensed to handle explosives.  I see an event that starts with education and safety, namely a precision rifle clinic.  Most importantly, I see ordinary people enjoying themselves with firearms.  All these things can be easily highlighted in a TV segment with proper storytelling and editing.  Sure, there are some people that would be appaled by the idea of Boomershoot, or a machine gun shoot, but those are people who won’t be reached by any kind of positive coverage of any kind of shooting. I think we need to spend far less time worrying about which kinds of shooting activities do or don’t look favorable to the public, and worry more about telling the story of gun owners and shooting.  Let the public get to know ordinary gun owners, who have families, work at ordinary jobs, go to ordinary churches, and lead ordinary lives.  Do that, and it won’t matter whether they shoot a bolt action .22, an AR-15, a machine gun, or whether they get a thrill shooting at high explosives.

Shooters have a story to tell, and I’m grateful there are guys out there like Jim Scoutten and Michael Bane out there telling it in new, interesting, and entertaining ways, and presenting it to a mainstream audience.  We need that.  But I think we need to tell the whole story, and machine gun shoots and events like Boomershoot are part of that story.

Caleb takes a different point of view on the matter discussed earlier, and gives us some more information about Jim Scoutten’s views about what shouldn’t be on TV in regards to the shooting sports.  I don’t really disagree with Jim on his points.  I suspect where Boomershoot would fit would be his fifth point:

5) Any event that requires an extraordinary expense by a viewer to become involved. (Full auto events are, at best, an expensive curiosity, and can not extend our invitation to “get involved”)

Though I’ve heard of clubs that do shoots with tannerite, it’s true that it’s not accessible to most people.  I’ll give ShootingUSA their editorial prerogative on this one, but is this about it not being appropriate for ShootingUSA or exposure to television at all?  I don’t think there’s been any damage to the shooting sports by coverage such at this.   Quite to the contrary, I think it presents Joe’s event as a lot of fun.

So I guess the question is, is Jim Scoutten saying that Boomershoot isn’t appropriate for ShootingUSA, because it’s beyond the perspective of the show, or that Boomershoot isn’t appropriate for any mainstream audience?  If it’s the latter, I disagree.  I can understand why you wouldn’t want to show people at Knob Creek machine gunning a junkyard school bus.  I can see why you wouldn’t want to cover a gaggle of mall ninjas dressed in black or camo.  There’s a lot of context missing there for the uninitiated.  But I don’t put Boomershoot into that category.  I think most people who aren’t reflexively afraid of guns would understand it as fun.

Color me disappointed by Shooting USA‘s attitude on covering Joe’s Boomershoot event on their show.  Kevin and SayUncle are both disappointed too.  This is not the first time I’ve encountered trepidation at the idea of highlighting this sort of thing, but I think the attitude is remarkably shortsighted.  Here what Jim Scoutten, host and producer of Shooting USA had to say:

I’ve always thought there are some events that shouldn’t get National TV coverage. When we’d like the public to think of competitive shooting to be like other mainstream sports.

Actually, I think the fact that this is a little out of the mainstream is part of the appeal.  I think it was Blackfork I heard say once that “Watching other people shoot is like watching paint dry.”  I have to agree.  It’s not too exciting.  I’d much rather be on the line myself.  Even watching IPSC or IDPA matches isn’t nearly as much fun as participating.  The fact that guys like Scoutten and Michael Bane can make shows about guns and shooting that are interesting and entertaining is a testament to their skill as hosts and producers rather than to the exciting nature of the shooting sports to start with.

But Boomershoot is something that’s, shall we say, a lot more inherently interesting.  Humans have used fireworks for centuries as a form of entertainment.  As Joe Huffman says, we’re wired to find explosions and pyrotechnics interesting.  I think back to how I would have looked at Boomershoot before I got into shooting, and I’m fairly certain my reaction would be “Holy crap that looks like fun!”

And that’s really the reaction you want.  If you’re looking to present the shooting sports to the public, you want them to look interesting.  You want people watching to think “I’d like to try that.”  I’ve often wondered if the reason action shooting sports have taken off so quickly is because it just looks more inherently interesting to spectators, especially on TV.  I think rather than having an instinctive fear of an event like Boomershoot, which is a little unusual, Shooting USA should think more seriously about it’s potential entertainment value to audiences, and a way to get more people to think about getting up on the line themselves.  It may be outside the mainstream, but that’s not automatically a bad thing.