Maybe There's Hope After All

[John Davis]

I apologize that this isn't a Parker specific thread but we've bemoaned the decline and death of shooting sports enough that I believe it appropriate. I volunteered this year to help coach the Varsity and JV high school shooting team at Southland Academy, Americus, Ga. We began the season today with a tournament at Flint Trap and Skeet Club in Albany, Ga. The kids shot Sporting Clays and Skeet. Normally they also shoot Trap but the machines were down. We had about 100 high school and junior high competitors from 7 different schools. I was fortunate enough to be in charge of three of our young lady shooters. They were squadded with two other young ladies and a young man from a "rival" school. All were wonderful ladies and gentlemen. They helped each other out and gave each other high fives no matter what school they were shooting for. Safety was foremost on their minds and their display of sportsmanship outstanding. I was very proud of each and every one of them.

[Drew Hause]

Good for you brother. Enthusiasm is contagious.

This is the 1930 Georgia State Championship in Albany
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/champions-fire-in-state-trapshoot-albany-ga-crack-news-footage/1147769376?adppopup=true

[Dean Romig]

Great work John! Our sport needs a lot more men like you to allow it to perpetuate through the next generation.





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[legh higgins]

one of My states chambers were "Locked down" one day last week. Someone entered with a black umbrella and all hell broke loose... not so much school shooting sports up here now. in Vermont

[Bill Mullins]

Thank you John for volunteering to do this for our young men and women who will represent our future in the shooting, hunting, and collecting sports. They could not have had a better teacher and mentor! 😊

[Mike Koneski]

Thanks John! I will add that in the past 4-5 years we have seen a good increase in youth participation on our course.

[Mike Franzen]

Thanks for that report. It does give hope.

[Pete Lester]

I saw the handwriting on the wall so to speak back around 2004 when I was heading up the NH Hunter Education Program. When I looked at our annual statistics I looked at the number of 16 year olds that were graduating the program (the first year they would need the course to be able to buy a hunting license). I looked at the number of graduates at age 16 state wide against the 260 cities, towns and unincorporated townships in the state. We were graduating on average fewer than two 16 year olds per municipality. Hunting license sales were also plummeting. In the late 70's and early 80's our Fish & Game Department estimated we had 10,000 waterfowl hunters statewide. By 2004 the estimate was down to 1500. With guns and hunting being demonized by the media, schools and in social media I don't hold out much hope for any significant improvement.

[John Campbell]

With guns and hunting being demonized by the media, schools and in social media I don't hold out much hope for any significant improvement.

Every corrupt entity in the history of mankind has used media to subvert the minds of the masses to follow deranged ideas. Now, the computer/internet has made such foul propaganda a snap.

[Daniel Carter]

When I duck hunted a lot, 90's, on opening day we could count on every puddle having some one to keep them moving. This past year all the shooting was my own. Deer season used to be a mob, now alone or one other truck. I hope other areas are different but even in Maine I see a big drop, a day will go by in which my group is the only shooting I hear.

[Bill Murphy]

My Dad dragged me out pheasant hunting when I was about seven, threatened me when I got ahead of him and the dogs in the field. I imagined the back of his hand whipping me across the face to keep me behind the gun, but it never happened. I learned fast. At twelve, he took me out to our gun club and handed me over to some All Americans like John Dalton and others of his ilk. Dad seldom had to buy my second box of shells, the other shooters taking care of that chore. We always had a house full of setters, even though it was sometimes just one. By the time I was in college, I was the manager of our club and still had setters. Home from the Army in 1969, I still had setters as well as a great pointer, and still shot targets for money as well as a few box pigeons when I could afford them. A few years ago, we closed our eighty some year old club and I was honored as the senior member with the bronze plaque that had adorned the entrance. I continued my Parker addiction that had started when I was fourteen years old and that gravitated into PGCA Life Membership and a trip to Ilion with the PGCA Research Committee, the highlight of my shooting and collecting life. Now, at seventy four, I have to worry about liquidating my collection of guns and paper at an honorable price. Oh well, there is one in the mail, due Tuesday!

[CraigThompson]

A few years ago, we closed our eighty some year old club and I was honored as the senior member with the bronze plaque that had adorned the entrance!

Was the gun club of which you speak the National Capitol Club that was in Damascus thirty or so years ago ?

[Tom Pellegrini]

Every year on the third weekend of June backwoods Quail Club Hosts The Junior U.S. Open. No adults, young people 5th grade to college. I have volunteered the last seven years. We have teams come from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and the shotgun team from the University of Alabama. We average 300 competitors. As mentioned above in this thread, the safety, manners and sportsmanship are second to none. It is the my favorite event to work and I look forward to it each year. At the first year of this event Rick Hemmingway and two other gentlemen formed the South Carolina Youth Shooting Foundation.

[Bill Murphy]

Craig, yes, National Capital Skeet and Trap Club, Darnestown, MD. The Damascus Izaak Walton League is where we relocated the 85 year old North South skeet shoot, the oldest continuously run NSSA skeet shoot in the USA.

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Gentlemen, Let's get some of these young people to shoot in our Youth Shoot next year, I realize the logistics may not work for most but maybe some? Young people are the future of our shooting and collecting! Thanks to you fellows for being involved! Gary

[Tom Jay]

Encroaching residential development is what I think sunk the National Capitol Skeet & Trap Club. I shot there numerous times before joining the Izaak Walton League Potomac Chapter in Poolesville. Currently living on Cape Cod and the same residential encroachment is happening around some of the few remaining trap and skeet clubs here. When the clubs were started in the '50s and '60s the surrounding neighbors were farmers with plenty of land as buffer. Now people have bought lots and built homes near these clubs and are complaining to town councils about noise and gun safety. One club, Midway in East Falmouth has prevailed in several lawsuits where neighbors have asked for more restriction to shooting activities.

[Dean Romig]

Fortunately Tom, Massachusetts has a law which states, in effect, that if a gun (shooting) club was there when you bought your house you should have known of its existence, or your real estate agent should have known and disclosed it to you. Consequently, you have no grounds for a lawsuit.






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[Mike Franzen]

Fortunately Tom, Massachusetts has a law which states, in effect, that if a gun (shooting) club was there when you bought your house you should have known of its existence, or your real estate agent should have known and disclosed it to you. Consequently, you have no grounds for a lawsuit.






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While that may be true an anti-gun lawyer can find many ways to harass a shooting venue. At my club we can’t shoot before 10:00 am on weekends.

[Richard Flanders]

And next it will be noon... then 2pm.... then ????

[Bill Murphy]

Volume of property is the solution. Tom Jay mentions a club where I have been a member for sixty years. We started with 365 acres and are now just under 700 acres and looking for more. We have sold all of our transferrable development rights (TDRs) for cash which we used to buy more land. Our property is of no interest to builders with no building rights. Volume of property has been our salvation. We have done all this without any appreciable gifting by dead members. However, the future may change that. Several years ago, we withstood an attempt by a country not friendly to our values to move in very close to us with questionable motives. As members of our community in good standing, our "town" joined us in our attempts to change the plans of this country and its dubious religious values. This took place before 9-11, an event that gave credence to our supposedly racist motives. The end result is that we are still hunting and fishing our property and still shooting rifles and shotguns seven days a week.