Rot in shooting sports

[tirpassion]

Hello Biren,

I live in France and am a registered shooter with the French Federation of Shooting. I can say that I am yet to find a shooter who is fully satisfied with it's functioning process. Speaking otherwise, have you or rather has anyone come across any organization where nobody has any grievances? Even in a family of blood relations, there are differences of mentalities and opinions, in some cases there are even serious situations. These are obviously to be discussed out and compromised in certain cases for living in harmony. So, I believe that the Indian shooting body has it's negative sides also. But does that deserve a title like 'Rot in Shooting Sport; License to kill' in a popular daily? Does this not tarnish the image of a shooter, a law abiding citizen? In short, does this not hurt you? Well, it does to me.

I am happy that the renowned shooter sell off their sports weapons to aspiring shooters. Otherwise, how can the aspiring shooters get hold of a precise weapon to perform? Let us cure this disease from the root. Let the import of weapons be easier. For the ammunition part, there is anomaly as I have been obliged to understand. One more thing to be noted here is that the majority of the Indian competitive shooters shoot the .22LR ammunition or the shotgun shells.

best regards
tirpassion

[Biren]

Dear Tirpassion,

You have very valid points. Do statements like licence to kill etc or statements which are not substaintiated be supported? No. I have just tried to bring attention to a larger picture. How many of these shooting federations have access to range or efforts made by them to tie up with exisitng shooting ranges available with police or para military forces? How wide is their active member base who come and particiapate in electing office bearers?

On paper every district in India has a shooting association called district rifle association. Statstics are impressing on paper. How many can you think can afford Rs.100/- a pop or practise with 50 annual quota? Then where are ranges?

Let these shooting associations be functional & accountable, let them import weapon, ammo & access to ranges.

Last few years there has been flurry of activities and shooting as a sport has got media attention. It helps when people see RVS, Bindra standing at the podium & destroys the myths which surrounds shooting.

Poor putani has written whatever info was available to him. No doubt somewhere article reflects ignorance, but cannt help as like him for most in this country weapon is nothing but an instrument for assault

XL with due respect please understand i meant why throw the baby along with bath water. Some part of article are reality & fact.

Rgds,
Biren

[airgun_novice]

Dear Biren,

No one objects to ethical reporting- it's yellow journalism that has thrown the IFG off. Should you read Putani's Part-I, you will clearly see hat he tries to create "an atmosphere" to amplify un-naturally what he wanted to write in Part-II - at the expense of legitimate license-holders, sport shooters and the shooting sport in general.

Had the journalist demarcated the ethical part from the unethical and launched the tirade on the lack of ethics by some shooters (a few rotten apples in the barrel of good ones as per Naga ), it would have been appreciated.

Also notice that readership of DNA is in millions but that of IFG is in a few hundreds. The harm following impact by misinformation is vastly greater than feeble dissipation of true information on the IFG.

The question that has arisen inadvertently but left unanswered by the journalist is - "Why is there a black market for ammo ?" in the first place. Though the answer is obvious, is he afraid to tread that path ? The Q is already answered in this thread itself - no need for any RTI.

[Mark]

Putani2005,

For firearm identification you probably referred to this ( For Indian journalists I would suggest replacing Glock with MOUSER [Mauser] )
[ Image ]

For those of you that think the above image is a joke, sadly that is not the case:
From the New York Times at this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/ ... UNS-2.HTML

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/ ... UNS-2.HTML

Even if the person was just ignorant and not promoting an agenda, there is still no excuse for labeling a photo a "40 something" when there is a marking saying "45" right on the gun.

This is why the press is considered incompetent.

Edit- the image is too big, so just click the link.

[BowMan]

Members,

Came across this article published in DNA Sunday Mumbai Edition dated July 22nd. Purportedly, the article is about how ‘India’s sports shooters, given special licence to import arms and ammunition, are selling them in black market’. The article itself is titled ‘ LICENCE TO KILL’.

I found the article to be outrageously poor quality journalism. I suggest that a letter/mail should be sent to the editor highlighting factual errors and extrapolations which are galore in the article.
If we do not do this than I am sure that any remaining medal hopes that our country has in the Olympics will also be brought to nil.

Members may please do a read of the 2 page article attached herein and give their opinions.

Regards
BowMan

https://rapidshare.com/files/323606110/ ... -pg1-0.pdf
https://rapidshare.com/files/3376914638 ... -pg6-0.pdf

[tirpassion]

Bowman,

There is already a heated discussion going on in this thread.

http://indiansforguns.com/viewtopic.php ... 8&start=45

best regards
tirpassion

[Skyman]

Mr Putani.

The members of IFG have replied regarding the contents of your article,with patience and precision though i assure you, our outrage is great.I have a suggestion for you.I will give you an idea that will give you a leg up as a journo.Spend another month, nay, take a year to do intensive research and speak to all senior officials from all over the country.The question you should ask them is " Why is there a black market for arms and ammunition,especially those of foreign origin?".Please post your findings here first.OK?

Thank You.

[timmy]

Poor putani has written whatever info was available to him. No doubt somewhere article reflects ignorance, but cannt help as like him for most in this country weapon is nothing but an instrument for assault.

Biren, a wise man keeps his mouth closed and his ears open when he is ignorant or uninformed about something. This is just plain old common sense.

It should be evident to you where Mr. Putani fits in with this principle, thus I am somewhat confused about your apparent defense of his ill-informed statements.

[.338 lapua]

but.....where is Mr Putani,Many unanswered questions,sir if you are there please answer one question at least

" Why is there a black market for arms and ammunition,especially those of foreign origin?".

[BowMan]

tirpassion - thanks for redirecting me.

Members – Please I implore you all to write a formal rebuttal to the News Paper.

During the course of the article the journalist raises some specific and a lot more generalized allegations. Let us have a look at them one by one.

The article starts with a reference to the Lokhandwala incident and says the .32 wad cutters found from the location point towards connivance of sportspersons and wad cutters are used ‘ONLY’ in sporting events. However, the fact is that the there is no Olympic event that uses .32 calibre handguns, one does not necessarily require a sporting licence to purchase wad cutters.

Further there is some non corroborated talk about sporting persons purchasing assault weapons on their import licences and what is given is a few cases which can be termed as isolated. I find it hard to believe that such irregularities can be done (if at all) without there being some vested interest involved within those agencies/authorities that are doing the job of implementing the Arms Act and regulating Arms Trade.

The rest is all moonshine and there is very little substance in the article which can really be debated.

Bowman

[Skyman]

Bowman, i have a better idea.Why don't we have eminent members write an article clearing the air, and get that published instead of any form of sorry which fixes nothing?

[Biren]

'It should be evident to you where Mr. Putani fits in with this principle, thus I am somewhat confused about your apparent defense of his ill-informed statements.'

Dear Tim,

I am inspired by Amrica specially the facilities it offers to people who love shooting. I heard there are big shooting ranges, with wide selection of equipment and no dearth of ammo. One can go & practice at club & choose from variety of weapons available. You must be having people fiercely protective of their rights as well a big booming industry with deep pockets to support cause. Both are gainer you see with more and more people having access breaks the resistence as well help availabilty of quality equipment & ammo.

Yesterday after months of frantic search, i happen to get address of my local club or say association. You should be here to see how happy i was that in this small town we have not one but two recognized shoting clubs. One was just 15 minutes drive (Plz dont confuse with USA). Must be 1 km. Happily off i went... It was dusty lane where the so called club was supposed to be. Confused i checked with people around if they heard of XYZ Golden shooting Club.. People starred me from toe to head..... In Pictures shooting clubs looked big with lots & lots of space (Off course those were pictures from Amrica) & here i was standing in small 1 mtr wide lane with stupid confused expressions. This cannt be.. how can there be a shooting club.. Then i remembered secretary name was written on the given address.. so i asked the persons around. One old local directed me to a staircase, 2 nd floor...

Explaining self ohh.. this must be the office... shooting range must be some where else... i climbed the stairs with heavy foot... Knock Knock.... After five minutes when i was about to return, an old man opened the door.... look donnt want to buy.... no no sir its just that i was looking for a address... u know this.... no no this is on the next building...

See tim, we must be having around 1000 or soo recognized shooting clubs.... possibly second largest in terms of arms available with civilians, but nothing fancy like you guy have there in Amrica ..... honestly one pop equals to daily wage... My goverment is very clever... weapons in civilians hands heat up... must be something to do with the hot weather here.... This again has to do with temper.... either your are 100% this side or 100% that side there is no midway..... Poor gautum expired long back..ppl here donnt like midway... they laugh...Poor putani tried pulling our pants.... we instead of pulling our pants back went after him will full josh.... u know josh.. thats full energy.... Now he is no where to be seen except we donnt know if we were able to strip him as he tried doing ....

Well tim u see this basic human nature... u dare pull my pants i pull urs.... But the most interesting thing is people he tried to pull down are silent and the spectators have jumbed the bandgoan.....

On a serious note functional clubs will make difference... help reach wider audience... bust the myths around shooting..... introduce people to quality ammo & weapons.....

Yours friend from India

Biren

As far as your opening ear & closing mouth and my apparent defence you should plz read my comments... its abt the sorry state of shooting associations in this country.

Imagine district level shooting associations (Must be more then 500) headed by District Magistrate of District and other numereous associations clubs including state associations becoming functional:

- More awareness, less uninformed articles.
- Better weapons & affordable ammo ( Rare are cases where ppl ask go back to ambasdor after driving suzuki, even hindustan motors improved)

[tirpassion]

Dear Biren,

Following your trails and concerns about the shooting scenario in India, I do not understand how you are taking the defence of Putani2005.
Putani2005 has certainly not defended the cause of the shooters in India. Had he done it, as you are trying to put up in his defence, the title of his article should have read something like 'Aspiring shooters; victims of the institution', or 'Budding Shooters nipped at the bud' etc.

As a common man who does not know anything about the shooting sport, if I see a title like the ones mentioned above, I will start to read the article with a conditioned viewpoint of sympathy towards the common Shooters.

But when I see 'Rot is Shooting; license to kill' as the title, I start to read with a pre conditioned negative attitude towards the shooters in general.
I will think 'God! these people are really bad. I used to think that the renowned shooters get us medals and world records. In fact they are really anti nationals, supporting the goons, the mafia, the separatists and perhaps the maoists and the terrorists also. They are nothing more than black marketeers; All are rotten and we Indians have been so proud of them. What a shame!!!'.
The rest of the article only reinforces the idea. Yes, you have hit the target, or putani has done it effectively.

regards
tirpassion

[timmy]

Biren:

My point was, the only thing more foolish than to spout off about something one does not know is for that same ignorant person to assume the responsibility of educating a wide audience on the same subject.

No matter how numerous, lengthy, or convoluted your posts to the contrary may be, I hardly think you will convince many that my point is unreasonable or untrue.

Furthermore, I doubt that you will be successful in convincing anyone here that Putani2005's posting does not fit exactly the behavior my point addresses.

[nagarifle]

Biren:

My point was, the only thing more foolish than to spout off about something one does not know is for that same ignorant person to assume the responsibility of educating a wide audience on the same subject.

and this is true in every area.