EricW Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 I shoot for the sense of inner peace and control. I hunt because I love the outdoors. (And if I didn't, my dog would hate me.) [Thread Drift Mode] Anyone who thinks hunting is solely about killing has never truly hunted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shooter Grrl Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 True confession time I started shooting to prove that I could, I've continued because I enjoy it and may even some day be good at it. I spent my formative years as "Kathy Klutz" and find the personal challenge of overcoming my own shortcomings to be more fulfilling than pretty much anything else I've ever done. And then of course there is that adrenalie rush thing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kellyn Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 Having just passed up Area 2 for a mule deer hunt, I suppose I'll just jump into this debate. (FYI I was unsuccessful but I got to play tag with a nice buck and gave some smaller bucks a pass) To me hunting and competitive shooting are completely different. I was raised doing both and competitve shooting has certainly made me a better harvester of game but there is little similarity between the two pursuits. As for hunting, I don't hunt for trophies (although I don't shoot nonmature bucks or females) and I don't hunt for food (although I eat what I shoot). I hunt to hunt. It's the primal experience of the hunt that I'm after. IMHO hunting literally provides an altered state of conciousness. Senses are heigthened and awareness sharpened. Hunting strips away the veneer of civilization and places man back into the natural world in a way that NO other activity does. This is not to say that hunting does not have tradition and custom but in the end I think the modern hunt is an attempt to grasp at simpler and natural state. I originally did not like the idea of the hunt as a competition but in a sense it is. It's the competition between predator and prey. However I hate the trend to make hunting a competition between humans i.e. my deer is bigger than your deer. I want nothing to do with the Safari club types who are in a race to collect the most and biggest. As for competitve shooting, I suppose I am chasing a different state of conciousness. That state of "grace" that comes when I perform well under pressure. Feeling myself on autopilot, watching the sights and targets. Feeling smooth transitions between targets, etc. I really crave that sense of "slowmotion" when I'm shooting at my best. It's kind of funny. I love the competition. I love trying to best guys like Voigt and TGO but I don't really like "beating" people. I want everybody (or most everbody to shoot their best but then I want to win. Talk about a paradox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalker Posted November 13, 2003 Share Posted November 13, 2003 It's the competition between predator and prey. However I hate the trend to make hunting a competition between humans i.e. my deer is bigger than your deer. Ditto! It exactly what I was thinking and haven't been able to express. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdj Posted December 22, 2003 Share Posted December 22, 2003 It's interesting that there are many very divergent reasons for doing the same thing. I'm a Aikido-ka (www.shugenkai.org) and regard this type of shooting as an almost perfect way of further testing the unification of mind, body and spirit under a different kind of pressure. I started IPSC for exactly that reason, drifted away for a while and now I'm coming back. So, it's a wonderful adjunct to my training and also a very entertaining way of converting money into sound and light Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davecutts Posted December 22, 2003 Share Posted December 22, 2003 Shooting is fun, and shooting IPSC is real friging fun, shooting IPSC well is really friging cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironman Posted December 22, 2003 Share Posted December 22, 2003 When I started shooting competitions it was not planned, I was just in the right place at the right time. Once I tried it, I was hooked. The excitement, the accomplishment of getting faster while still being accurate and the people are great. I have been a moderate hunter since I was very young and truly enjoy it once I get away from the crowds and into nature. I find it a shame that a few bad hunters have all but ruined it for those of us that have respect for private property and nature. I have tried several types of shooting over the last 40 plus years and have not found one that I did not enjoy. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajarrel Posted December 23, 2003 Share Posted December 23, 2003 Why do I shoot? I can't give a single answer to that. I love the smell of burning powder. I love to be able to watch a .45 bullet go downrange when viewed at the right angle. I love to see that steel fall. I love the comeraderie (sp) of being around shooting people. I like to win, but I LOVE to be competitive. This hobbie/obsession/way of life has let me mingle with some of the greatest folks around. In the casting of bullets and the reloading and shooting, I have found something that I can do that releases the tensions of the day or week. I am beginning to enjoy the mind-game of shooting. I have really learned how to shoot targets one at a time and not get so durn tense at the line. I'm thru rambling now, but this is why I shoot. OBTW, I enjoy bagging the game or boating the fish, but there are times when sitting next to a tree in the sunshine on a cold morning without even loading your gun, or sitting in the boat without even baiting your hook cannot, IMHO, be beat. just my thoughts, dj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TriggerT Posted December 23, 2003 Share Posted December 23, 2003 Not being in the Law Enforcement filed, I can't find people to go man on man with "Simunitions" so IPSC is the next best thing. Actually, I have shot one type of competition or another since I was in 5th grade. I have just always loved guns. IPSC is BY FAR the most fun I have ever had shooting. Still like the other types of competition, but they seem boring by comparison. How do you FULLY describe something you have always, and will always love? The forum doesn't have enough space for all of us to fully exprees why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravisT Posted December 23, 2003 Share Posted December 23, 2003 I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix, but my next door neighbors said I should shoot for Todd Jarrett instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Posted December 24, 2003 Share Posted December 24, 2003 I actually started running with loaded guns because my guardian angel was fixin' to quit me over motorcycles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpolans Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 I've been shooting for fun since around age 5. At the time it was just fun to spend time with dad and do something (pull trigger) that gave you an instant response (noise, recoil, and a hole on a target or a soda can flying). I started shooting IPSC competitively around age 11, because it looked fun. You got to draw, run around, crawl through tunnels, shoot fast and do speed reloads. Back then, it had a "cops'n'robbers, but with real guns"-type of appeal. I also thought it was cool to be able to compete with adults, especially whenever I beat most of them! Traveling to the various matches near where we lived at the time was a fun way to see a lot of Europe. There was always a good bit of cameraderie too, even for someone like me, who was often half the age of the next youngest competitor. IPSC shooting also got my attention because no two courses were the same; each was an individual puzzle the shooter has to solve in their own way. This problemsolving aspect was probably the most attractive thing to me about IPSC. Lately, I've been shooting ISSF stuff (Air Pistol, Free Pistol, Standard Pistol and Rapid Fire Pistol) because I've become more interested in focusing on precision. I'm finding more satisfaction in trying to make every shot happen perfectly. I'm sure it'll pay off whenever I shoot IPSC again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Dame Posted December 27, 2003 Share Posted December 27, 2003 If you have to ask, then you just don't get it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasag93 Posted December 27, 2003 Share Posted December 27, 2003 I am a very competitive person and really like firearms of all kinds. I just combined the two with IPSC. It gives me a high that is hard to explain(many of you know what I am talking about) when I get up to the line to shoot. One word for why I shoot : competition! TXAG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Di Vita Posted December 27, 2003 Share Posted December 27, 2003 They let me play with explosives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted December 28, 2003 Author Share Posted December 28, 2003 Mike Dame Without reverting to the old crusty, irascible, Tightloop, I will put this as gently as I can. I get it..just curious if you shoot for the same reasons I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ipscron2000 Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 I was thinking about it today, Why do I shoot? I could be doing a number of other things with my time and money. There is only so much to go around, and I spend lots of time involved in shooting. We all talk about BSing with friends at the range. We could do that at the tennis club, but most of us don't. I remember buying my first handgun at the age of 21, on my birthday. I have always been fascinated with handguns. They are really cool mechanical devices and they can contain allot of power. I guess at 21 it was the power trip. Now it's trying to improve my gun handling skills. I have my CCW license and I honestly believe that USPSA would help me in a gunfight. God forbid I ever get involved in one. I think of USPSA as a mind game. I like to figure out exactly how the best way to run a course of fire with my skills and handicaps. Tell your story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Di Vita Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 Well for one it is the thing I'm best at. When I was 14 years old I was pissed off about something or another, looked myself in the eye (in a mirror) and promised myself that one day I would be the best in the world at something. I have chosen this to be it. Other than that, it is just funner than hell. This is one sport where you control everything about your performance. Good or bad, look no further than yourself. There is just something about shooting that I can't really put into words, but anyone who feels like I do knows exactly what it is I'm talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tangram Posted April 1, 2005 Share Posted April 1, 2005 Shooting for me is: Fun I can do it alone. It can be social. I can get better at it. Not dependent on others (team) Shooting has a place for focus/trancendence I can compete (mostly against myself but there are organized games) It is a no excuses kind of activity. (If the hole is the wrong place, I put it there.) Useful (Self Defense) Long term - (I know a 80 year old shooter who shoots well and has fun and is getting better.) I like the noise muffled though it is. Some overlap in the the items but so what. I also like riding motorcycles on the road for many of the same reasons. It does have an added element of risk. For me it is easier to socialize in casual shooting situations. There will. I expect, be a time that I may not have the physical ability to ride sooner than may happen in shooting. Both have the focus/tanscendence spaces built in. Neither activity tolerates screwups. I also enjoy making gardens and creating an interesting place to live.... and so on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jef Posted April 1, 2005 Share Posted April 1, 2005 I like that I am responsible for my own performance. All three of my hobbies are like that: skiing, fishing, shooting. I must not be a team player! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shooter Grrl Posted April 1, 2005 Share Posted April 1, 2005 ME = ADRENALINE JUNKIE and shooting is way the hell safer than jumping out of airplanes, falling off of mountains or any of that other "extreme" crap that's so popular right now. Just give me a buzzer and a gun and i'm good to go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j1b Posted April 1, 2005 Share Posted April 1, 2005 Because when I hit it, and I mean I really hit it - when I do something better than anybody else has ever done it - under pressure - in a match - one chance - and it happens . . . At that point it's not like shooting is optional, it's just me. That's why I do it. Can't wait to feel that again - JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ankeny Posted April 1, 2005 Share Posted April 1, 2005 There is just something about shooting that I can't really put into words, but anyone who feels like I do knows exactly what it is I'm talking about. Exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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