TargetTalk

Hi Everyone,

I am a competitive collegiate rifle shooter and have to give a speech on a controversial topic for one of my classes. I plan on talking about the shooting sports but need to know why it is exactly that people oppose shooting? I understand that some people believe it to be dangerous but thats the only thing I can think of. Does anyone have any different insight on why people oppose the shooting sports?

Thank you,
Brian

My opinion is all you see in movies and on the news is guns being used in a bad way. You see gang bangers, carry-out robberies, hold ups, etc. When have you seen reports of marksmanship, the 4-H shooters, the Junior programs etc.?

I live in a gun friendly area of northern lower Michigan. Last year one club I belong to invited the news in to cover the junior winter indoor 3-P shooting (Cadillac, MI), they did a great story and had a flood of juniors coming into the progam. Which makes we wonder if maybe we aren't getting the word out also about the progams.

It would help to know what class it's for and the level of that class itself -- you'll need to structure your speech to address the specific issues you expect your professor and classmates to raise.

JJ
(an over-educated shooter with an MA in history)

Another issue to think about is lead. While those of us who shoot hardly ever think about lead (except, hopefully to wash our hands before we eat), that seems to be a commonly-used excuse to shut down programs.

The people who I have encountered who oppose the shooting sports basically hate guns. Most, but not all, have no first-hand experience with firearms. They have based their opinion upon what they see in the movies, tv and written media. They feel morally superior by telling us that there is no valid use for a firearm in our society. Some very few gun-haters have had a bad experience, i.e., relative committed suicide with gun, they were robbed at gunpoint, killed by a criminal with a firearm, or they know someone who was killed or injured in a firearm accident.

You had better have your facts straight when giving your presentation. You will be challenged with emotional arguments about the presence of guns causing the crime rate, firearms accidents, and suicides to increase.

Theologian Martin Luther was a big fan of the Shooting Sports, now in his day it was Crossbows, but shooting sports all the same. Talk about the great events of the late 1800's thru the mid 1900's, competitions at Bisley, Camp Perry, Creedmoor, Sea Girt. Families came for the day spreading pic-nik lunches under shade trees while the competitors fired voiles upon voiles at distant targets. It was the great American Pastime and it was furiously contested among the civilized peoples of the world. It's tough to argue with History and you can find Photos to back up you argument.

Misny wrote:The people who I have encountered who oppose the shooting sports basically hate guns. Most, but not all, have no first-hand experience with firearms. They have based their opinion upon what they see in the movies, tv and written media. They feel morally superior by telling us that there is no valid use for a firearm in our society. Some very few gun-haters have had a bad experience, i.e., relative committed suicide with gun, they were robbed at gunpoint, killed by a criminal with a firearm, or they know someone who was killed or injured in a firearm accident.

You had better have your facts straight when giving your presentation. You will be challenged with emotional arguments about the presence of guns causing the crime rate, firearms accidents, and suicides to increase.

Agreed 100%. The vast majority of people who oppose the shooting sports do so because guns are involved. Period.

Why do they hate guns? They've bought into the arguments that guns cause crime, that a large proportion of people with guns hurt themselves or loved ones, that thousands of children are killed in gun accidents annually, that people with concealed carry licenses are murderous lunatics, that allowing guns on campuses will cause shootouts over bad grades, romantic rivalries, or perceived slights, etc., etc. All of these arguments can easily be shown to be false (and in many cases intentionally misleading [e.g., the "child victims" are often 17 year old gang-bangers; hardly innocent children]), so you need to do your research and prepare your notes so you can shoot them down.

Yes, as TomAmlie says, the two most common reasons for opposing shooting are:

- The idea that guns make suicide or murder easier, and that if you remove guns from legal ownership, then anyone with a firearm is a criminal by default, which makes enforcement easy. To an extent they have a point on the murder/suicide issue. Mass murders are more difficult with a knife, but not impossible. The most deadly school massacre in history was committed by a school governor who filled the cavity walls of Springfield Elementary with explosives and levelled half the school. It just requires more planning.
That leaves you with the argument that "crimes of passion" can be reduced, such as hubby walking in on cheating wife and shooting her and her lover, but then show me something a gun can do that a common or garden kitchen knife or baseball bat can't.

Furthermore, experience in the UK shows that outright bans do little to stem criminal usage, because if you can smuggle a crate of heroin into a country, you can smuggle a crate of guns in, and we all know the war on drugs has had limited success.
Even if you closed the borders, firearms are not difficult to fashion with basic workshop tools - a lathe, maybe a pillar drill and a few hand tools are all you need.
In that respect you will never prevent someone obtaining a firearm if they really want to, and in "crimes of passion", there are many other items one can find about the house that make effective improvised weapons.

This leads onto the second point:
- Ignorance. Most of the negative spin from the items discussed in point one are purely down to ignorance. As people have rightly pointed out, the media usually only focusses on the negative uses of firearms (i.e. those that make good headlines). The positive uses get a small paragraph somewhere in the sports section, not a full 2-page spread with additional commentaries and columns.
People assume you can easily control firearms by banning them from public ownership, or that such a move would be effective in combating crime.
They see very little ISSF-style shooting, or material from the Junior programmes, and only the illegal side makes the news.
It is a hate born from a lack of information and understanding, that prevents them from making a balanced judgement.

There are a few informed people who make rational statements about firearms controls. I'm a shooter, and I believe in a few modest and sensible controls to keep criminals and psychotics from easily obtaining firearms off the white market, and that there are a few valid reasons for a few valid restrictions should be noted.

However, the vast majority of anti-firearms campaigning comes down to one statement:

People fear what they don't understand.

Most of them have never handled or fired a firearm in their life. They refuse to accept them as inanimate objects, no more lethal than a car (how many pile-ups could you cause and people could you kill driving the wrong way down the freeway). They imagine they will get this "power rush", or an urge to shoot the people around them, or else that the gun will turn around and bite them.
Usually ten minutes on a range solves that. It's getting them to the range that's often the tough part, so ingrained is the idea that they will come to harm whilst there.

May be we should try educating these ignorant people rather than having pointless arguments with them.
My club did this on a very local level by inviting some borough council officials from their sports development dept to come along to have a look and have a shoot. Most of them admitted that they did not know what target shooting was about, but all could see the that we were dedicated sports people and they all enjoyed the experience.
They could see that we only shot at paper targets in very controlled conditions and we made it clear that we did not like our names being dragged into the area of gun crime because we were not criminals. All the councillors agreed with our concerns.
JSB

JSBmatch wrote:May be we should try educating these ignorant people rather than having pointless arguments with them.
My club did this on a very local level by inviting some borough council officials from their sports development dept to come along to have a look and have a shoot. Most of them admitted that they did not know what target shooting was about, but all could see the that we were dedicated sports people and they all enjoyed the experience.
They could see that we only shot at paper targets in very controlled conditions and we made it clear that we did not like our names being dragged into the area of gun crime because we were not criminals. All the councillors agreed with our concerns.
JSB

We can sure attract more flies with sugar than vinegar. One-on-one invites to the range are very good in breaking down barriers. In the US the NRA and State Associations are always educating the ignorant and that helps. We have a big hill to climb, though, when we try to counter the influences of schools, the media and entertainment industries. We can only keep pecking away.

Pull out the Bill of Rights. Point out that, love guns or het 'em, the Bill of Rights makes the USA different than any other country on earth, in that the Framers believed the People, not the government, should be granted inalienable rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms. They knew a government would inexorably tend towards abridging those two freedoms, as ultimately they are a threat to the government itself! Now, having those freedoms sometimes causes pain. We don't always like having to listen to nuts on the radio or TV spouting hateful, hurtful nonsense, nor do we like that fact that living in an armed (and free) society sometimes means people get hurt who don't deserve it. As Prof. Merriweather liked to opine in the movie Little Big Man, "Life contains a particle of risk, Jack." We accept certain risks as being inherent in living in a polite society. As crazy as they have become, I would join the ACLU in a heartbeat if only they chose to support the Second Amendment, which they curiously single out from the rest of the Bill of Rights as protecting the National Guard! If you want a chuckle, ask an ACLU member to explain why, if the Bill of Rights protects individuals from the government, and the Second Amendment is near top billing *in* the Bill, did the Framers mean the Second Amendment to protected the government? Watch 'em squirm and dance around that one!

Even if you don't own firearms, don't think airguns aren't on the list. Witness the slippery slope Great Britain is way down. They are now considering banning glass beer mugs in pubs as deadly weapons. No joke.

Brian Adams
Reno, NV, USA
(NRA Life Member)

I'm really surprised the Forum let me post a reply as "guest", and now I cannot edit the post above ("het" = "hate") even though I am logged in. Every other forum I am in makes you log in to post, and for good reason.

Brian Adams
Reno, NV

Anonymous wrote:Even if you don't own firearms, don't think airguns aren't on the list. Witness the slippery slope Great Britain is way down. They are now considering banning glass beer mugs in pubs as deadly weapons. No joke.

Brian Adams
Reno, NV, USA
(NRA Life Member)

I'm not quite sure where you gleaned that snippet of information from, but it's rubbish. The UK are not considering banning glasses, and I wouldn't suggest we are on any great 'slippery slope'.

And whilst some folks bury their heads in the sand with inalienable rights this and freedoms that, your rights are slowly being eroded and taken away. You only have to look at gun laws in many of your states to realise that.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote:I'm not quite sure where you gleaned that snippet of information from, but it's rubbish. The UK are not considering banning glasses, and I wouldn't suggest we are on any great 'slippery slope'.

In fairness there was a thing in the papers last month about a push to have pubs and clubs use plastic glasses. It was either a quango or an MP mouthing off though, not a serious parliamentary proposal.

And yes, America has had many of it's citizen's rights infringed on, such as state level firearms laws (California?), as well as legislation such as the Patriot Act.
The 2nd Amendment is not the be all and end all that some would like to think it is.


As for the UK, I think we can be described as on somewhat of a slippery slope (not that parts of the US aren't on a similar slope).
- In the last 20 years SLRs and Pistols have been moved to Section 5.

- You no longer have the right to remain silent (i.e. the right not to incriminate yourself).

- Pretty much getting out of bed in the morning can be construed as an offence worthy of 28-days detention without charge under our vague and all-encompassing "anti-terrorism legislation". Legislation which seeks to prevent terrorists changing the way we live our lives, by changing the way we live our lives...

- Taking a picture of a street can be argued to be illegal if it features a current or past police officer or member of the armed forces under "Anti-Terrorism" legislation. Meanwhile, some officers think it is acceptable to go out on duty not wearing full uniform. Namely their shoulder numbers which are there to make them accountable to the public. What with them being public servants, acting only with the approval of the public and all that.

- Police think a worthy way to spend their time is to trail people through supermarkets to ascertain if they've lied on their child's school application forms.

- Meanwhile, our lawmakers are so bad at their job and write such vague legislation, two mothers are prosecuted for sharing child-care without CRB-checking each other.

- Clubs should CRB check every coach, and indeed any club with any U-18 members is now supposed to register every single one of it's members, as they will probably all have frequent contact with a child.

This is all despite the fact that Child Protection is worthless, and that Geoffrey Prime and Thomas Hamilton, to name two notorious child abusers/murderers, would have passed a CRB check (meanwhile, thousands of people are branded unsuitable to work with children every year because of "clerical errors" matching their names to offences they did not commit).

Name one worthwhile piece of legislation that has been introduced since 1997. Go on, just one.

The ban on smoking in a public place, now this is just my personal view but it's going to open up one big can of worms ;.) Colin

I got pulled by the Mass Police just out side Boston for taking a picture of a nice Antibellum house that was next to a Post Office. They asked me why was i taking a picture of the Post Office? I said i wasn't it just happened to be next to the nice house. They didn't buy this because i was a not American.
MMMM.
JSB

JSBmatch wrote:I got pulled by the Mass Police just out side Boston

We hope you enjoyed your visit to the "Cradle of Liberty". (A moniker that used to be shared by the Boston area and the Philadelphia area. Now a point of painfully bitter irony).

RobStubbs, you've been down the slippery slope so long, it looks like "up" to you. The personal freedom landscape regarding firearms, airguns, edged weapons, etc. in the US is still so wide open compared to the UK, do I really need to justify using a term like "slippery slope" when discussing your restrictions, and how they evolved? Presumably, many decades ago, your laws were about as wide open as ours still are today. But perhaps your descent into bondage wasn't down a slippery slope, but over a cliff, in which case I humbly apologize for the mis-characterization.

Brian Adams
Reno, NV, USA

The last post was by Brian Adams. The Forum keeps spontaneously logging me out without notifying me, so it came in from "guest" again.

I just fixed this by configuring my firewall to stick to a single IP address when communicating with targettalk.org. If this web site detects rotating IP addresses, it logs you out (a security precaution.)

Brian

Our friends from the UK are spot on in their observations. The 2nd Amendment is being trampled upon in various cities and states across the country. In some states and locales firearms laws are very restrictive. In Michigan, for example, there are strict laws affecting even air guns. Of course, we have made some progress with the right to carry laws in most states. I can only imagine the chagrin of many citizens of other countries when they come to the realization that when visiting the U.S., they could be standing next to an average citizen toting a loaded firearm in public.