IPSC/USPSA Case Book

[Tman33_99]

I am also a high school basketball official. I have become very familar with reading rules and usually understanding how to apply them. In basketball it is impossible to write a rule to cover every scenerio that may be encountered.

This is very similar to our sport. The rule book is written to create a fair and level playing field for all competors. In basketball, instead of writing every rule to cover every scenerio, the National Federation (High School Rules Committee) issues a "Case Book" every year. In this book, a rule number is listed (these are listed in rule order) with a scenerio with several possiblities. Then the answer to each is given. This book is a good reference to referee's, players and coaches.

I suggest that IROA and NROI work to establish a similar "Case Book". I will even post one example. Let's not debate the particular example or the ruling I come up with, but the suggestion of using a "Case Book".

8.6.3 Case: A competitor unexpectically changes directions and A makes contact with the Range Officer, B sees the Range Officer and makes obvious effort to avoid contact C makes contact the Range Officer and falls and has muzzle of gun face further than 90 degrees from the median intercept of the backstop. Ruling: In A and B The Range Officer shall offer a reshoot before the competitor is aware of any time or scoring for the course of fire. In C the competitor shall be issued a match disqualification in accordance with rule 10.5.2.

What does everyone else think? I am sure this could be a serious undertaking the first time, but I think once accomplished it would be a living document, even more so than the rule book.

[mactiger]

Not a bad idea.

Troy

[Vince Pinto]

TMan,

A great idea, but we sorta have that now with the questions in our various RO Seminar examinations. Having said that, Chairman of the IPSC Seminar Committee Neil Beverley is a regular visitor and contributor to these forums, and I'm sure he'll take your suggestion under advisement.

In the interim, my sincere thanks for a positive contribution.

[pwalker]

Good idea.

But, given that the objective is to make it easier to understand the intention of the rules, I would suggest that the language and structure of the Case Book be simplified. In the example that you cited, I would suggest you could write them as 3 separate cases, rather than all that A, B and C stuff.

I would also suggest that the wording can be simplified to achieve the objective of helping ROs and competitors understand the intention behind the rules. For exmaple: "muzzle of gun face further than 90 degrees from the median intercept of the backstop", could be "break the 180". The language simplification, which is difficult to do in an official rule book, would also help the non-native-English-speaking IPSC people.

8.6.3 Case 1: A competitor unexpectically changes direction and makes contact with the Range Officer. Ruling: The Range Officer shall offer a reshoot before the competitor is aware of any time or scoring for the course of fire.

8.6.3 Case 2: A competitor unexpectically changes direction but sees the Range Officer and makes obvious effort to avoid contact. Ruling: The Range Officer shall offer a reshoot before the competitor is aware of any time or scoring for the course of fire.

8.6.3 Case 3: A competitor unexpectically changes directions and bumps into the Range Officer. The competitor falls and the muzzle of his gun accidentally breaks the 180 degrees line. Ruling: The competitor shall be issued a match disqualification in accordance with rule 10.5.2.

Of course, the real challenge with this great suggestion is: who is going to write it...

And then of course, there is the ongoing effort to keep it synchronized with changes in the rule book.

Regards

Peter

[Vince Pinto]

Of course, the real challenge with this great suggestion is: who is going to write it ... And then of course, there is the ongoing effort to keep it synchronized with changes in the rule book.

Paging Mr. Beverley. Paging Mr. Beverley.

Price check, aisle 3, ladies knickers

[Tman33_99]

Vince,

My experience with the RO Seminar Examinations, is that the answers are not published with the questions. The examinations (and rightly so) make one dig for the appropriate ruling and appropriate rule. While this is a good thing, it is not a place someone can go to, to check on the intent of a rule.

My suggestion of a case book would not be anything to create new rules, but only to help make the rules more understandable to everyone. Some rules are very obvious and will only have a case or two, maybe none. Others have many possilbities. They all would never be explained, but hopefully with a few rulings on the cases that are possible, rules would be applied more equally throughout the sport.

Peter,

Your suggestion for using lay language has a very good point. We just have to make sure the translations and words used here are used similarly elsewhere. The reason the basketball rules do case A, B, C is to save space, and combine common threads.

There would probably be another case or two on rule 8.6.3 in the case book addressing "another external influence" such as a dog running across the range, spectator shouting, etc.

[Neil Beverley]

Hi All

Thanks for the input and in particular thanks to Tman33_99. I'll add this as a discussion point for the committee and the concept follows some similar thoughts that I have but with a different flavour.

I have a couple of observations generally about the seminars:

• We only have 2 days so we have to carefully allot the time available.
  
• There isn't enough time currently allotted to the exams to debate the answers properly. The exams are superb for teaching if used for that instead of just for testing.
  
• The current "Ask IROA" section is useful but needs to be updated and expanded.
  

On this last point it may be that we can combine it with the idea suggested here. In any case we should be able to increase the amount of "useful" take home reference material.

I will be most definitely listening and watching on these forums for any and all ideas so please feel free to post your thoughts openly for discussion or alternatively you can always PM or email me. I have already "stolen" a number of ideas for the committee to discuss.

Many thanks.

[Flexmoney]

Great idea.

Kinda resembles what we get here too?

[Tman33_99]

Great idea.

Kinda resembles what we get here too?

Exactly,

But I don't usually lug my desktop to the range as a handy reference tool for a match.

[Jim Norman]

This looks a lot like Case Law. You know where after a law is written judges decide what was actually meant and then the lawyers all buy volumes of refernces to see what they can do to get around what was ment by the legislature in the first place.

Now, that having been said. I think that a book of specific examples as to how to apply the rules is a great idea. I would go so far as to saythat it could be apart of the rulebook. In fact if the rule book were written in plain english, it would be the rulebook.

Maybe there could be a collection of arbitrations published, but would arbitrations then become precedent setting?

How do we arrive at the Examples to be used in this case book? As the result of arbitration? As a result of hours of greasy pizza and two-finger typing on the forums? Who should/would decide what case applies?

Again, I think it a great idea. I just wonder who has the time to do it? I don't think it should be the same people that write the rules by the way. I think they should get a look at it though before it gets published. It might give the rules committee a new insight into how we in the trenches read what they write.

This should be available to the general shooting membership, not just to certified RO's. We should all be able to look up how the rules will be applied.

Jim Norman

[Rob Boudrie]

USPSA is taking some steps in this direction.

We currently have a restricted forum (Only John Amidon can post to it; everyone can read it) for the posting of "official opinions and interpretations."

One the Area 7 Championship gets over, I'll be writing a customized system for the publishing and management of "official opinions", so that we will have an on-line archive of all precedent-setting official determinations. IPSC will be welcome to the source code as well, however, the IPSC.ORG webmaster is fully capable and would not need my assistance to implement a system.

[Neil Beverley]

Continuing on from Rob's point. It is critical that all opinions and interpretations are official ones. It has to be a controlled process. There cannot be 2 different definitive reference books.

It mustn't be an automatic process that any arbitration decision is automatically included. I've known more than one strange arbitration decision.

The rules committee is the appropriate body to ultimitely discuss and determine the correct calls. The decisions must be based on what the rules say rather than what people want them to say. For the case book to work properly the examples must be solid and correct decisions. The trick is going to be in creating clear explanations and interpretations that don't end up rewriting the rules.

[Tman33_99]

The decisions must be based on what the rules say rather than what people want them to say. For the case book to work properly the examples must be solid and correct decisions. The trick is going to be in creating clear explanations and interpretations that don't end up rewriting the rules.

Neil,

That is exactly how the High School Basketball Case Book is set up. It does not re-write any rules and all the cases are reviewed by the national rules commitee. Arbitration cases may be a good place to get situations, but they should not be included in the case book if they rules commitee feels the decision does not fit the rule.

I understand this could become a big undertaking. Maybe this could be started on the USPSA and IPSC web sites. I would think that member could go to a web form where they could put in a rule number, a case situation, and a ruling. These could then be sorted by rule reference for review by the rules committee before publishing on the web or in a book available for online purchase.