funding for shooting
Sorry if this bores the civilian readership but I feel its obvious that without "the Service," service rifle is a terminally ill program.
Funding for shooting is available still for shooting in the CF, its just going to come out of the unit budget not the national level budget. "Joe Taxpayer" may think it really does not matter as, "it all comes out of the same pot," but thats not the case. I make the case that
unit shooting programs must prove to the CF that service rifle and pistol shooting is a valid pursuit.
Units can make plans in their operational planning to attend pretty much whatever rifle competition they want subject of course to financial audit and approval by the chain of command. The hard part is rationalizing the cost of sending 4-6 shooters on a competition swan when budgets are already tight. It also does not help that big competitions are generally held in the midst of summer to maximize participation and shooting conditions. This is the time when units (especially reserves) need their talented shooters (usually overall good troops) to attend career training or teach others.
Every dollar spent from the unit budget on a shooting team is money that could be put towards putting the unit as a whole in the field and training. Make no mistake about it it is very expensive to send a rifle team away to shoot and your tax dollars are funding every cent (I do both the unit budget and weasel as much money as I can for the shooting program). Currently most unit ammo allotments do not include any spare ammo for competition shooting so any ammo spent on this is taken from the overall allotment to train the unit in live field firing and achieving their annual personal weapons testing.
I believe money spent on a shooting team or individual sharpshooters is tax payer's defence money well spent but not at the cost of maintaining a team of prima donnas to the detriment of the rest of the troops. I wish we could send every shooter that scores marksman to BCRA competitions but I would have to cancel two unit weekend exercises to afford that and it would cost twice our annual unit ammo allotment (which we will never get).
While competition shooting suffers in the CF, I have never seen the tactical shooting ability of the "gunfighters" as a whole be better. The live fire instinctive shooting programs being done by the light infantry battalions are outstanding programs designed by the JTF II and very similar to programs used by the US Rangers etc. Eventually these tactical shooting skills will filter its way into the reserves and other units and change the way units flog through the lame duck "shoot to live" program.
To save competition shooting in the CF the grass roots shooters are going to have to stick with it on their own (buy lots of cool black guns and shoot!) and engage the chain of command to demonstrate the benefits of a unit shooting program. It boggles my mind that some guys on a military shooting team do not even have a PAL or own an rifle or pistol. If the unit commanding officer sees competition as a party trip for a section of guys it will not get funded. If they can show him it leads more troops to be marksmen, snipers, excellent coachs, and quality small arms instructors he should invest in the program (assuming he's a warrior).
What really kills me is that there is plenty of funding for broomball, volleyball, softball, soccer and other non-contact, base-paper, and family-friendly type sports. We send atheletes around the world to compete in the International Council of Military Sports (CISM in french)
http://www.cism-milsport.org/eng/welcome.html games but limit participation in most fighting martial arts competitions other than Tae Kwon Do or Judo. Same goes for Canadian shooting at CISM (Olympic style shooting only) the program is tiny and hardly very relevant to any soldier skills in the field.
One way to get the CF to support a sport or club is to make it more relevant to the CF as a whole. If most soldiers see shooting as a dying fringe interest (thats ironic
) past time the purse-string holders will take no notice when there is a huge turnout for baseball teams. Its a competition in more ways than one. I encourage CF shooters to get involved and learn how teams and clubs on their base get organized, funded, and approved. Help out with the club.
The other major factor I believe holds the CF shooting program back is the lack of a CF shooting "Godfather" with real influence. Similar to a reserve unit's Honorary Colonel, each CISM and major CF sport has a national senior officer sponsor appointed to act as the sports advocate. It takes a senior officer who actually participates (maybe not at a competition level) to advance the interests of a sport to personnel at the decison making level in the CF (in Ottawa). Imagine CFSAC if General Hillier shot IPSC or owned a safe full of his own ARs and BHPs. Encourage a junior officer to take interest in the unit shooting program and not treat it like a SLJO. As bureaucratic as this sounds it is the way "roundball", playground sports have dominated real soldier sports at bases across the country. With the op tempo right now the army reserves have a better chance in pushing proper musketry programs with both public and non-public funding and lots of soldier interest.
For the civys reading this, I believe you can only win if service rifle shooting takes off again with a new vitality brought about by tactical style matches that echo what snipers, gunfighters, and pistol shooters are doing in their small arms training-for-war. I hope you support the PRAs and DCRA as much as it is relevant to you. Again, I believe service rifle shooters lead to a more deadly and cooler CF as a whole defending our country, but only if they are war-fighters and sportsmen who put in the time, not gear queers on an TD scam.
DC13
Qc area land force)... will look into it for sure.
