DCRA, and the PRA, were originally established as training apparatus for the military. They should remember their roles and why DND grants them access to range facilities in the first place . They can do their own fun stuff on the side, but they have to at least devote part of their effort to benefit the military ( especially the Reserves).
...the CF really does not care what they do. I think M1-12 is a much better fit for them and they are going to do what they want anyway.
I think the two quotes (sorry if they are out of context) are good summaries of where things sit with Service Shooting in general.
One thing that is forgotten however, is the CF is a national force comprised of volunteer citizens, and the one lesser known aspect of the DCRA (as with the counterpart CMP in the US) is that the relationship also was a way for the CF to bridge the gap between civilian and serving members. While the shooting competitions were easily identified and linked to a training benefit, it is often overlooked that this was a way to bring the two groups together in a competition based 'sport' (and in my humble opinion, of far greater benefit).
This is something we have or were fostering with IDPA, but I'm not sure this has legs. Too bad. There is alot of involvement by ex-CF guys in both sports, and the APRA has a long standing commitment to Cadets as well. I'm not sure if the CF has stats on the numbers they gain from cadets or the reserves, but I'd hazard a guess it is substantial - at least substantial enough to make an impact).
I never got into competitive shooting, be it CF or civilian until I was out of the Forces. But what I'm hearing and what I've seen, is that the PRAs have no involvement with the Forces (with the exception of reserves in B.C. and ?? in Ontario?).
The Forces sees shooting as a job only, and the aspect of it building bridges with community involvement has long fallen to more 'civilian' types of activities such as golfing, and charity events. Then there are the old dogs still shooting full bore (now they have new guys filling their ranks shooting f-class) who don't give a sh!t what the Forces do, and just want to participate in shooting events without the fuss of 'having' to involve a second party.
Then there are guys in the middle who try to make a programe, get involvement in the 'sport', and quite frankly, are fighting a loosing battle.
IMHO, SR is the dying breed, not the full bore-type programes. They are at least modifying their game to include others (however reluctantly), while the SR guys are trying to hang onto 'battle and assault rifles' that, by every indication - no one wants us to have.
It will be an interesting to see how much weight the DCRA can sway when the next round of prohib. list comes out with the AR (and others) listed - to see if they can keep them from the smelters.
Kind of a sad state of affairs.
Any arguements that the DCRA or PRAs should be closer to DND need to come with a very good understanding of how training (and more importantly training time and money) is tied to what soldiers do for a living - its not recreation, its your tax dollars working.
So in your opinion, is it worth repairing that link between the PRAs and the CF, regardless if the matches are 'x' thru 'y'? Does the 'building bridges' approach to competitions with the PRAs still hold water with the CF?
