Shooting sport

Shooting sport refers to a set of competitive or recreational activities involving the shooting of ranged weapons at various targets. The earliest shooting sports involved the use of spears and bows. Modern shooting sports involve firearms such as rifles, pistols, and shotguns, or archery weapons such as bows or crossbows. Competitive shooting involves shooting ammunition such as bullets or arrows at a target from a set distance. Precision, timing, and athleticism are all gauged, as participants attempt to achieve the specified target goals of each individual competition. Thousands of shooting competitions occur annually all over the world, and since shooting became an Olympic sport, professional shooting has continued to see large increases in interest.

Origins and History

In ancient times, militaries used target practice to train soldiers to handle weapons such as bows and arrows or spears. The ancient Greek poet Homer describes Greeks holding archery contests in honor of the gods in the Iliad. Shooting activities were also practiced by ancient Indians, Persians, Slavs, Celts, and Germans. Shooting skills, also known as marksmanship, came to be a highly regarded talent as the centuries continued. By the tenth century, marksmanship competitions had gone from ceremonious to recreational. Social events featured shooting competitions, and individuals were lauded for their winning skills. One famous sharpshooter was the fourteenth-century Swiss folk hero William Tell, whose legend holds that he shot an apple off his child's head with a crossbow and heroically assassinated a tyrannical Austrian overlord.

As shooting sport grew in popularity, its practice became a hobby to many, and soon shooting clubs were opening up across Europe. The first shooting clubs emerged in Germany between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Shooting clubs held regular events such as one-shot competitions. Clubs also sponsored joint festivals during holidays and special occasions, with large monetary prizes promised to the best shooters.

The Age of Discovery brought thousands of Europeans to the American continent between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. During this period, German and Swiss immigrant gunmakers began creating flintlock rifles that adapted to the hunting and protective needs of the American frontier. This period saw the development of shooting competitions known as "rifle frolics" or "turkey shoots," so named because food such as turkey and beef were often given as prizes. Precision shooting matches also took hold of the settler community, and soon gunmakers began designing specific guns for matches. The first match-specific rifles were created between 1790 and 1800. Trapshooting also became a popular sport in the late seventeenth century. This type of shooting utilized a shotgun and involved launching a live target into the air. The shooter then attempted to hit the target midair.

The early nineteenth century saw shooting festivals take on a more formal pretense as their popularity grew. Pistol matches became a source of entertainment to inhabitants of the American Wild West, with individuals such as William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody and Annie Oakley gaining fame for their superior shooting skills. By the late 1800s, large-scale shooting matches were taking place all over the country. Events featured hundreds of competitors and attendance rates reached into the tens of thousands. Prizes also greatly rocketed in value, with some festivals reportedly offering $25,000 in cash to competition winners. The first World Shooting Championship was held in 1897 in France, one year after shooting sport became a featured competition in the Olympic Games. At that point, a number of governing bodies had been founded to oversee the conduct of various shooting sports.

Rules and Regulations

Game play of shooting sports varies by the mechanism of shooting. Bow shooting sports competitions involve using bows and arrows or crossbows to hit a target from a distance. Bow shooting targets are fixed with a bull's-eye, and the object of the sport is to shoot an arrow as close to the bull's-eye as possible. Bows can range in size, and competitions often have different matches for specific bow sizes.

Gun shooting sports primarily involve three types of guns: shotguns, rifles, and pistols. Competitive shotgun shooting normally has three major competitive categories: skeet shooting, trapshooting, and sporting clay shooting. In the skeet shooting competition, a shooter must shoot targets launched from opposite directions to intersect midair. Trapshooting play is slightly different, with clay targets being shot in the same direction at different trajectories. This competition measures a shooter's decision-making skills. The final category, sporting clay shooting, sees shooters aiming at multiple targets at once as a number of clay targets are launched from many directions and trajectories at once. This event is designed to simulate what a shooter would expect in the wild when a flock of birds launches into the air. Each category is judged on speed and the amount of destroyed targets.

Rifle and pistol shooting sports largely focus on precision shooting. Pistol competitions usually involve bull's-eye shooting, with shooters expected to shoot as close to the bull's-eye as they can from a set distance. Some competitions are timed to increase difficulty. Others require shooters to use only one hand while shooting. Pistol competitions can also be self-defensive in play, designed to mimic real-life situations.

Rifle competitions include small bore, high power, and benchrest. Small-bore competitions are usually shot at closer ranges. Depending on the match, shooters are standing, kneeling, sitting, or lying flat on the ground. The goal of small-bore competitions is to hit the middle of a bull's-eye with as many shots as possible. High-power rifle competitions are shot from greater distances, and shooters must account for factors such as wind speed to ensure the preciseness of their shots. Small-bore and high-power rifles are also used in silhouette shooting competitions, which involve shooting small moving or stationary steel targets arranged at different heights and angles. With benchrest competitions, rifles are placed on a rest so the shooter does not have to hold it. This rest is mounted on a bench where the shooter may sit and aim the weapon. Benchrest competitions are usually judged by a shooter's ability to shoot multiple shots in a concentrated spot on a paper target.

The rules of conduct for shooting sport vary by country and mode of shooting. In the United States, the nonprofit corporation USA Shooting governs the rules and regulations of American shooting sport. USA Shooting has rules for a number of shooting mechanisms including rifles, pistols, and shotguns. Globally, the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) makes the official rules and regulations for the world's shooting sports. The ISSF provides a list of rules and regulations for shooting competitions in all Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cups, Continental Championships, and Continental Games.

Strategy and Tactics

Shooting sport strategy centers on each competition's scoring methods and target type. Since events are often sponsored by different shooting organizations, approaches to how competitions are scored can vary widely. With bull's-eye shooting, shooters are scored by how close they can get a shot to the bull's-eye. These events usually give shooters a limited number of shots. In longer-range competitions, shooters must calculate wind speed and assess how it affects a shot's trajectory. Targets used for bull's-eye competitions are mainly circular in shape and contain multiple colored rings extending outward from the bull's-eye. Each ring has a different value, and shooters earn points based on which rings their bullets land.

With competitions such as silhouette and trap/skeet shooting, shooters are judged by their timing and number of shots fired more than their precision. The longer it takes a competitor to shoot a target, the lower his or her score will be. When multiple targets are involved, shooters must make quick decisions regarding what targets to hit in their limited time. Although some targets may be easier to reach, the more difficult to reach targets accrue more points. Shooters must decide whether it is more worthwhile to aim for several easier targets or a few harder targets during competition.

Professional Leagues and Series

Thousands of professional shooting leagues, associations, and clubs exist on a national and international level around the globe. These organizations train and sponsor professional shooters, who then participate in competitions around the world. One of the largest American shooting organizations is the National Rifle Association (NRA). For several decades, the NRA was responsible for leading and developing pistol, rifle, and shotgun shooting in the United States. The organization holds an annual World Shooting Championship, as well as more than eleven thousand shooting tournaments every year. The NRA served as the governing body of Olympic-style shooting beginning in the 1970s before being superseded by USA Shooting, which became the national governing body for shooting sport in 1995. USA Shooting established a team of top-rated competitive shooters who participate in Olympic shooting events

Other national organizations that cater to competitive shooting sport include the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the United States Practical Shooting Association, the National Skeet Shooting Association, and the National Sporting Clays Association. On the international front, the International Defensive Pistol Association, the International Practical Shooting Confederation, and the International Shooting Sport Federation are routinely involved in a number of world, continental, and multisport championships, including those found at the Olympics.

Popularity

Shooting sport's popularity has grown immensely since ancient times. In some areas of the United States, shooting sports have become so popular that schools have made shooting a varsity letter sport. Reports from 2015 showed shooting sports, mainly clay shooting, had especially grown in popularity among teens in the past decade. Organizations such as the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation helped schools train coaches and athletes, establish teams, and organize regional championships. Shooting sports continue to grow in popularity, with millions of people participating in and attending competitions all over the world.

Bibliography

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