WHY PISTOL SHOOTING IS UNPOPULAR

Games, or “sports” as they are called, would not be popular if they were conducted on the same lines that pistol shooting usually is.

Pistol shooting is made as dull and uninteresting as possible, and then surprise is expressed that hardly any one takes a pistol in his hand, except when compelled to do so, and that shooting galleries do not pay.

Small white squares of cardboard, a minute black spot in the middle of each, are put up at various distances. You are told to aim at this spot. If you hit it it counts so much, if you miss it, the further from it you perforate the paper, the less points you score.

When you have fired a certain number of shots, the total is added up and you go on again.

Occasionally, you have the mild excitement of being allowed to do this in competition, and a “spoon” is given you if you make top score, paid for out of your own money less a percentage which the gallery keeps.

Your skill does not avail you long, as the next time you shoot, by however many points you have won, by that number of points you are handicapped, so it is possible that if you get very proficient, you can have the pleasure, when making all bull’s-eyes, of being beaten by a man who has not made a single bull’s-eye, and beats you by handicap, and the list of spoon winners appears in the papers with his name on top and yours at the bottom, and people say, “How badly X shoots.”

This is not very encouraging to X or conducive to a desire to gain proficiency.

However bad a shot you are, you have an equal chance of winning this spoon.

Even the possibility of gaining a spoon applies to only a few shooting clubs. The shooting galleries in black cellars, do not give prizes. You are supposed to be fully compensated, after being deafened by a man with a full charge revolver or automatic pistol blazing away into the darkness beside you, by paying for your targets, ammunition, and hire of a greasy revolver with a trigger-pull hard enough to break your finger and a report like a cannon, whilst you strain your eyes to see a black front sight in the darkness.

There is no sport, or comfort, in all this. Under such circumstances nobody can be blamed if he gives up pistol shooting in disgust.

I shall describe later, how a gallery should be built (see Plates 15 and 16), or an open range planned and conducted, but I here merely indicate why pistol shooting in England is deservedly unpopular as at present conducted.

There should be no handicapping. Being able to shoot well should be an incentive, not a handicap.

Next, there should be the excitement and amusement of a game.

Who would go to look at a game conducted under the following conditions?

Sit in a room with all the lights out, with a faint glimmer at the far end.

Hear incessant, deafening noises.

Nothing else but noise for an hour or two, except occasionally a pause whilst the black spot in the distance disappears and then reappears.

Finally a man reading from a piece of paper announces:

Then you go home.

Some drudgery in learning has to be gone through with, but it should be in a good light out-of-doors, and this drudgery is only while learning. It should not be continued all through a man’s shooting career, and be considered “pistol shooting.”

As I will show, shooting can be made intensely interesting to both spectators and participants.

The present style of shooting competitions leads many sportsmen to say: “I love shooting, but I hate target shooting.”