While attending the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation annual dinner in Washington, D.C. Wednesday night, one topic of lively conversation between the shooting-related industry members on hand concerned the new shooters coming into the sport.
The question was a simple one "are shooters coming into today's shooting sports different from past groups?"
After several conversations, it seems the image of today's modern shooter bears about as much resemblance to yesterday's shooter as the modern sporting rifle resembles bolt and lever action rifles. They fire bullets, but in different ways - and driven by different goals.
My generation, guys who now are the aging (OK, older) guys in the industry - looks like we qualify for senior discounts. Unfortunately, that age gap has caused some confusion when it comes to new shooters.
Not a matter of being out-of-touch as much as a generational difference. For example: those of us who were shooting in the 1960s remember how "un-hip" it was to be a shooter - unless you were from a hunter. Police were regularly referred to as "pigs" and soldiers returning from Southeast Asia weren't exactly welcomed back with open arms.
Today's new shooters are products of an entirely different baseline of experiences.
They have seen gang violence and terrorist acts.
Soldiers and "first responders" of today are revered, not reviled. Consequently, today's shooters are more interested in personal defense than hunting, and favor the kind of weaponry they see used by soldiers and law enforcement.
Those preferences make them excellent candidates for competition shooting, especially practical shooting. After all, they see firearms as being necessary for the ultimate practical purpose- personal defense.
And the younger shooters of today area a product of the video game.
From Call of Duty to Halo I through XVII or whatever, gamers are all about their equipment. On Wednesday evening, Michael Bane told me that older shooters come up to him and ask generalized questions about some aspect of shooting. Younger shooters, on the other hand, come up to him and ask questions like "do you think the SCAR -heavy is too-big to be practical in a close-quarters battle situation?"
"Kids in the video game generation," he explains, "are capable of talking about the intimate details of firearms, even if they're ten years old. It's important to them. It's also amazing that you can get that kind of question from a ten year old kid."
As further evidence, Bane points to Call of Duty's YouTube channel. It contains video vignettes on the guns used in their game. Seems gamers take their armament very seriously. And it's why a smaller company like Daniel Defense has huge name recognition with younger shooters. CEO Marty Daniel says that's a product of his company's doing the high-speed accessories.
The gamers' recognition of the technologies and tools creates a desire to get into shooting - in an analog way.
Looking at the general trends in firearms sales, you'll see other indications of the differences in today's new shooter. Modern sporting rifles might have cooled as a hot product, but they still dominate long gun sales. And the bolt guns being bought aren't traditional hunting rifles - they're fashioned after sniper rifles. Accessories may come in camouflage, but they're also likely to come in flat earth or black and lean toward the close quarters battle configurations used in practical shooting - or home defense.
Ditto the handgun and shotgun marketplace. The small, concealable pistol and quickly deployed home-defense shotguns are hot products. Collectively, it points toward a sea change still not recognized across the shooting world.
With that change comes the opportunity to engage more young shooters in more ways than ever before possible.
But another critical requirement is also necessary: those of us who have always seen the shooting world through our own experiential eyes are going to have to change our prescriptions or risk losing out on a great opportunity to engage more shooters- and preserve our shooting sports and traditions.
That's my personal opinion, but based on facts like seventy percent of all ammunition sold today being sold for "non-hunting purposes" it isn't an opinion I've formed quickly or without consideration. As the face of shooting changes, we need to change as well.
Servicing this diverse new constituency -which includes 32 year-old Senior Congressional Aides concerned with defending their new spouse at home and the ten year old Call of Duty master - sets the stage for a positive future for the shooting sports, or the shooting industry.
It's a piece of turf we have to not only recognize, we must occupy. If we do, we're guaranteeing that anti-gun legislation on a national level might cease to be a threat.
Anti-politicians have already realized it's a toxic issue and have backed away. Ever the pragmatists, they've moved on to nibble away at other issues like traditional ammo and access to places to shoot -along with local and state legislation to inhibit shooting.
Those are areas where an energized influx of young shooters can quickly convince anti-gun groups that the idea of banning firearms simply isn't one the American public embraces or will tolerate.
--Jim Shepherd
