“Target Shooting”

" Imagine walking into a sporting goods store and approaching a salesperson with this: "Hello, I’d like to buy a ball for playing sports." After the inevitable strange look the salesperson would probably ask, "Which sport?" "I don’t know, but I’d like to play a sport." This question as posed is absurd because it is incomplete. A reasonable person would assume you should already know what sport you were interested in before buying equipment. Except, if the sport is marksmanship.

The very phrase "target shooting" is as nebulous as "sport ball." There were ten unique disciplines (fifteen total medal events for men and women) for shooting in the 2008 Olympics and various International organizations recognize many more. There are a host of additional Internationallyrecognized disciplines that are tracked by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), the organization that governs international shooting sports and is a member of the International Olympic Committee.

This is in addition to shooting disciplines that are shot in various countries but aren’t ISSF sanctioned. The Conseil International du Sport Militaire (CISM), or International Military Sports Council, has a half dozen unique shooting disciplines and the NATO militaries sponsor Commonwealth-inspired service shooting events with issue firearms, typically called an Armed Forces Skill at Arms Meeting (AFSAM).

Within the realm of practical shooting we have the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) with eighty-seven (!!!) member countries. Many countries have even more different kinds of formal shooting events. Within the United States there are a whole set of unique events.

The National Rifle Association and Civilian Marksmanship Program has a number of separate disciplines officially recognized by Classifi cation just within the realm of bullseye competition based on old military range exercises, dubbed the National Match Courses. The Nationals for rifle, pistol and smallbore (.22) have been held at Camp Perry, OH every year since 1907. There are at least a dozen other national-level organizations formally recognizing other disciplines.

The United State Practical Shooting Association, an IPSC offshoot in the US, has spawned Steel Challenge, NRA Action Pistol (Bianchi Cup), International Defensive Pistol Association, Single Action Shooting Society and others. Let’s not even start on shotgun disciplines… Next time a casual gun owner mentions that all-encompassing phrase "target shooting", ask him to name and describe as many disciplines that he’s aware of. Then ask him the same thing about ball sports and see which list is longer.

I’m convinced that this problem is crippling gun owners as much as anything the Sarah Brady-types can throw at us and sadly it is an internal problem of the industry. We can’t blame the "anti-gun media" when cardcarrying paying members of gun organizations have no idea what sponsored shooting programs are available. If this information is failing to filter down to members, we shouldn’t be surprised if Joe Public is just as ignorant. A customer wants afirearm for "target shooting?" Which sport?