Shooting Sports
Shooting sports are split into different categories in the UK between target shooting, clay pigeon shooting, pest control, and hunting. Sports once a relatively elitist activity have become far more popular in modern times amongst people from all walks of life.
Many modern civilian rifle clubs trace their history to the 'volunteers' of the middle 19th century, raised locally among the gentry to afford some readiness to counter the constant threat of invasion by Napoleon III. These volunteer organisations and military shooting clubs developed over time into civilian clubs as the Volunteer organisations were incorporated into the Territorial Army. The rise in popularity in the civilian clubs started in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially full-bore rifle events sponsored by the military and National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom to improve the general standard of marksmanship under the auspices of Defence of the Realm.
Read more about this topic: Gun Politics In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words shooting and/or sports:
“Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)