Author: Sebastian

Bitter and I both talked with one of National Shooting Sports Foundation‘s public relations guys, the same guy SayUncle talked to, and he was emphatic that NSSF does not endorse the conclusions of that report.  This report was meant to throw out ideas, and the purpose of the summit was to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

From my point of view, I emphasised that NSSF needed to be careful.  In the age of the Internet, it’s very difficult to have much of any control over the means and rapidity that information is disseminated.  The old Internet adage that “Information wants to be free” very much applies here.

While I understand and agree the industry needs to be presented with new data and ideas, and debate the implications, it needs to, nonetheless, be very careful about what it puts its name on.   There was no indication in the report that the action items in the report weren’t endorsed by NSSF.  Add that to the fact that there were numerous items in there, because of poor choices of language, would be good fuel for the gun control movement, and you have a recipe for a big problem.  And that’s not even mentioning the damage that can occur from within the gun rights movement itself.

So I am glad to hear that NSSF is distancing themselves from these ideas.  I’m as much of a handgun shooter as I am a rifle shooter, so I appreciate that others in NSSF recognize the importance of those parts of the shooting community, and don’t seem ready to throw handgunners under the bus.

Bitter talks about the handgun numbers, and notes that 37,665 of 55,000, or about 66% of NRA certified instructors are certified in handgun disciplines.  I would also add a thought to this mix.  One of the top reasons cited in this study for people leaving the shooting sports, and becoming inactive, was a lack of places to shoot.  Why on earth would you recommend setting aside handguns for rifle disciplines when rifle shooting typically involves an outdoor range, with a lot of land, and ranges typically measured in the hundreds of yards?  Few urban and suburban areas are supporting outdoor ranges and clubs, and the few that do exist are usually private, and not easily available to novice shooters.  I can name at least 5 ranges within 30 miles of me that are indoor pistol ranges, and all of them are public, and offer gun safety instruction to new shooters.

My shooting club, which is lucky enough to have one of the few 200 yard ranges in a suburban area, does handgun silhouette because we don’t have the room to do rifle silhouette.  IHMSA big bore goes out to 200 yards, and the smallbore shooters only out to 100.  Airgun disciplines only out to 18 yards.  NRA rifle silhouette goes out to 600 yards.  NRA High-Power also goes out to 600, and even to 1000 for certain matches.  How many places have room for that?

If the fundamental problem in the shooting sports is that populations are becoming increasingly urbanized, then the handguns sports are exactly what we should be emphasizing.  There’s room to do that kind of shooting even in a heavily urbanized environment.  The City of Philadelphia, for instance, has several active pistol ranges.  There are perhaps a dozen of them in the suburbs.  I can count on my fingers the number of ranges that can handle rifle and shotgun sports, and most of those are private clubs, which are more difficult for newbs to get into.  Bitter is right.  The times are a changing, and some people need to get over it.

Michael Bane talks about the happenings at the NSSF Summit, and I couldn’t agree more:

We have achieved these victories not by “staying the course,” but by taking the battle to our enemies. We have gotten here not by “playing nice,” but by doing what Americans do — standing up for our beliefs and speaking our minds and hearts. We are succeeding because we have stopped watering down our message and trying to pander to the very people who would strip us of our rights.

Go read the whole thing.  Michael has more experts from the issued reports, and comments on them thusly:

I don’t have to tell my regular readers how wrong-headed and profoundly incorrect these “action items” are. They are old school the worst way, a distillation of policies that have not only failed us in the past but are in fact the very policies that are responsible for nearly destroying us. “Hide, hide!” “Play nice!” Be something that you’re not, and maybe everyone will love you!

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Action items like these are a proven path to failure…and in our case, oblivion.

Yep.  That’s why it’s important to squash these ideas like bugs, because if they start infecting the movement, we’ll end up like Britain and Australia, whos sportsmen went down the very road these action items are advocating.  We cannot feed the misconception that handguns, or any other guns that are the demons du-jure of the anti-gun movement, have no legitimate sporting purpose, and downplay their role in lawful self-defense.

I have a copy of the study that I’ve been going through.  It makes numerous references to “non-lethal firearms” in the context of getting new shooters, who might be intimidated by firearms, to become comfortable:

Shooting sports programs utilizing non-lethal guns as a means of introducing newcomers are likely to be well-received by non-shooters and even anti-shooters.  By making non-lethal guns available, such programs will reinforce safety and the importance of learning to handle firearms and becoming comfortable with them.

This terminology needs to be banished from even having the chance to enter the shooting vernacular, and I don’t know of any sport shooter or instructor who would use it.  Here I’m thinking they are referring to airguns, but airguns are not “non-lethal” and are, in fact, potentially dangerous instruments that should be treated as such.  I do agree with starting new shooters, who are interested in the shooting sports, but might be afraid of firearms, off with air guns.  It’s a good recommendation.

But if we want to emphasize safety, we should never, ever, under any circumstances, imply a firearm or air gun does not have the potential for lethality.  If you’re teaching new shooters that air guns are non-lethal, you’re shirking your responsibility as an instructor.  This language should never have made its way into an industry publication.

As a sport shooter in International Handgun Metallic Silhouette (IHMSA for short), I will we watching the developments happening at the NSSF summit very carefully.  Bitter has some details which indicate NSSF may be considering recommendations that would marginalize handgun shooters.  I will have more to say about this later, but suffice it to say, I think this would be a significantly stupid move on the industry’s part.

I don’t think there’s anything illegitimate about the handgun shooting sports.  To the extent that there’s a poor public perception of handguns out there, that’s something that our sports can help overcome.  IHMSA, Bullseye, NRA Handgun Silhouette shooters, IPSC, and IDPA shooters are all engaging in legitimate recreational activities with handguns.  Let’s dispell the myths.  Sweeping handgun shooters under the rug and hoping no one notices seems to be to be the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

Apparently the safety improvements are underway at the Blue Trail Range in Connecticut, that we mentioned last week.  Berms and baffles should solve the problem effective.  Again, there’s no need to close shooting ranges to deal with problems like this.  They can be made to peacefully coexist with neighbors.