Columbia Cascade Section announcement

This from an email: from the Competition Director of the Section, dated February 15, 2013:

Attention Columbia Cascade Section shooters,

It is with great sadness I am writing this message to you all. A program that I have supported for 13 years is now gone. The Board at Tri-County is now going to require the Match Directors to disqualify shooters who violate the muzzle over the berm rule. This recent change to the enforcement is new, and was voted on and approved this week without any input or consulting with the various discipline directors.

This move by Tri-County is resulting in the suspension of the USPSA affiliation.  With this recent change, Tri-County has violated their agreement with USPSA by enforcing local rules at a USPSA match.

As of Monday the 18^th, I will also be resigning as a discipline director at Tri-County, and any matches moving forward will not be USPSA activities. Thank you to all those that have helped this club produce great matches for a lot of years.  It is very much appreciated and I ask you to please continue to put your energies into one of the other Section clubs.

I could go on and on, but there is really no positives that would come out of it. Please continue to come out and enjoy the best USPSA has to offer at one of the other clubs in the Columbia Cascade Section.

xxxxxxx  xxxxxxx

Columbia Cascade Section Coordinator 

I have been hearing about this 'recent change' to Tri-County Gun Club (Sherwood, Oregon) range rules for some months.  I was appalled by the concept, but the information I received from people who have recently competed at Tri-Co Matches is that pre-match shooter meetings have included careful enumeration of their new Range Rule, and it has not been a major issue  to date.

Apparently (and I'm guessing here), the Tri-Co BOD meeting has changed the situation from an 'advisory' to a mandatory ruling.

As I understand it, the "muzzle over the berm" rule is that if a competitor's gun muzzle is perceived by the Range Safety Officer to point over the berm, than that is grounds for what is in effect a Match Disqualification.

There is a lot of information which I do not have and cannot even guess at.   I don't know if this rule applies only to competition on the club's "Action Range", for example.  What happens if someone on the Muzzle Loader range points a loaded rifle muzzle over 90 degrees from the horizontal?  How can they load their rifles without infringing on this rule?  Or does it only apply after they have seated their percussion cap?  And what if they are shooting a flintlock, which does NOT require a percussion cap and is conceivably "live" as soon as a powder charge is loaded?

There's more than a little of the facetious in the preceding paragraph.  I will let it stand, if only to illustrate that I believe the decision of the B.O.D. at Tri-County Gun Club is ill-advised, arbitrary, and short-sighted.

A little background:
I received my initial Certification Training at Tri-Co in 1983.  They were the first club in the state to host USPSA/IPSC matches,  and the small cadre there sparked establishment of IPSC-style 'action shooting' at other ranges in the state, including Dundee, Albany, Eugene and Bend (where the 2003 and 2004 USPSA National Matches were hosted).  Tri-County Gun Club members arranged, organized and hosted both RO and CRO classes, both of which I attended and by dint of both I and my Significant Other .. Sandie .. were certified so that we could contribute our support as Range Officers to several Level III USPSA matches around the country.

I owe a lot to Tri-County Gun Club,  and it has hurt me to watch over the past few years as their "Action Shooting" programs have lost ground to the Old School (primarily shotgun sports) in the past few years.  That club has successfully battled land developers who tried to curtail the club activities as the small town of Sherwood expanded toward the range.  Since the club has been in place for over 50 years (I was a member for several years, while I lived nearby), and many of their members are lawyers who donated their services to battle many legal actions, it has survived against Political Correctness in many forms, successfully.

My best guess is that their membership support has finally failed to prevail against continuing outside legal onslaughts.  I have no factual basis for this assumption.

Although I have generally declined to participate in their club matches since 2008, it has not been because  I doubted their continuing commitment to provide safe, challenging matches including IPSC, Speed Steel and other action sports.  I know how they have struggled to continue their policy of actively supporting all the shooting sports, and I am saddened that they have finally been forced to accede to their opposition.