A Utah high school is under fire after its star quarterback told reporters during a post-game interview that he took big hits on the field and could not remember the last play, KUTV.com reported.(Underlined Emphasis Added)
Britain Covey, the Timpview High School quarterback, was addressing a scrum of reporters after winning the championship on Friday and said, "I don't even remember who scored on that last drive. I think it was me, but....uh...so, I took some big hits, but it was all worth it. Unless I have permanent brain damage, which I'm really praying not...not to have."
One of the things I say to people who ask to enroll in the "Introduction to USPSA" class which I teach is that ". it's safer than playing High School Football".
In the interest of brevity, I don't expand on this theme in my "boilerplate" (standard) commentary. However, my personal commentary is easily exemplified here.
The thing about Practical Shooting is, surprising? That it IS truly safer than playing football.
"IPSC" is demonstrably less likely to result in physical damage to its practitioners. Which has, admittedly (by my practice of comparing it to High School Football), established a very LOW standard of safety ... as this article establishes.
"IPSC" (the International Practical Shooting Confederation) has established several "rules" which are not acceptable to "USPSA" (The United States Practical Shooting Association), primarily because some national states have LAWS which require, for example, that the targets involved must not, in their judgement, represent the human form. Other laws have to do with the restrictions upon the specific technical forms of firearms which may be owned and/or available to adherents of the sport ... and other restrictions which are to numerous (and diverse among nation-states) to delineate in detail here.
Well, these folks do not live under the beneficent and benign Constitution of the United States of America, which recognizes the Rights of Man as opposed to the Rights of The State. Their loss, and since the USPSA folks have made it clear that they are not required nor disposed to accede to the laws of foreign land, this is why the United States Region of IPSC (USPSA) has been "allowed" to establish and issue its own Rule Book for Competition ... which is quite different from the IPSC Rule Book, in that we fortunate few have a Constitutional right to take advantage of our own laws, rather than follow the laws of ... say ... Kazakistan *. (They can't "always" have guns legally, but some folks have guns because they actually need to worry about, y'know, "shooting at people".)
Back to "Safety" and "IPSC":
* (Apologies to the good folks in Kazakistan. I wasn't trying to make the case that they were the "worst place in the world to be", but only to emphasize the point that even though local laws might be restrictive, The People may find that their personal security needs may be more fundamentally a priority than National Laws ... and they can still see Practical Pistol Shooting to be a legitimate sport.)
I don't know how it is with other trainers, especially in other nations, but within the limited confines of USPSA .. when I teach a class in "Introduction to USPSA", my primary goal is to instruct people in how to run&gun SAFELY!
The secondary goals are to introduce them to the safety rules in a benign manner. Which is to say ... you don't want to run & gun with people who are unsafe, so we're teaching you have to be the kind of gunner that you would feel comfortable with in your squad.
Beyond that are other goals:
- Learn the practices and purposes of competing with a loaded gun;
- Become comfortable with the range rules, the Range Officer Commands,
- Understand how and why the safety rules reflect on basic gun safety, and also who and why the competition rules address safety first, and then address rules of competition
- Evaluate the ability of the individual competitor to practice basic gun-handling skills
- Make the new competitor familiar (and comfortable) with the practices and procedures consistent with safety, skills and competition rules
All of these goals support the basic premise of instruction:
If you can't handle a gun, if you aren't safe, you will not pass the course. Other than that, our primary goal is to insure that EVERYONE who commits to USPSA competition is a Safe Shooter. Essentially, we want everyone to be a gunner who doesn't scare the pants off their squad members. And the only one who can hurt you, is .. you!
How does that compare to, say, High School Football?
IPSC is not a "Tean Sport". It's an "Individual Sport"; that means:
- Football has referees, but their goal is primarily insure that the practitioners adhere to the rules of competition
- IPSC has referees, and their primary goal is to insure that "nobody gets hurt"
- If a football player screws up, he may be sent to the sidelines. Whether or not he continues to play depends on competition rules, not safety rules.
- IPSC demands that any violation of safety rules removes that "player" from the playing field, immediately. He or She may have been acting in accordance to competition rules, but may still be "grounded" immediately and irrevocably because .... we don't want you running around with a loaded gun when you don't have your game face fully "
- In Football, you can't score "illegally"
- In IPSC, you can't play "unsafely"
Football requires that the participants acquit themselves according to the rules of competition.
IPSC requires that the participants acquit themselves according to the rules of SAFETY, and only subsequently according to the rules of competition.
Yes, we will penalize you (administratively) for taking an unfair competitive advantage. But at the first moment when you demonstrate that you have ... or may in the future ... acquite you in an UNSAFE manner ----
--- we will send you home.
Apologies, everybody feels "bad" about it .. but if you aren't ready to be SAFE, in the judgement of the Range Officer (Referee) ... we will require that you just get get the hell OUT of here, because you obviously in the right frame of mind to be running around with a loaded gun.
And that's much different from running around with a football ... even though nobody is on an "opposing team" and nobody is deliberately trying to "take you out".
In IPSC .. nobody wants to hurt you. Rather, they are all praying that you are the safest person around, and if they have to beat you it will because they are more talented ... more focused on the game ... more accurate .. more quick than you are.
They do NOT want to hurt you!
And THAT is why IPSC is safer than High-School Football!
2 comments:
A masterful discussion and analysis.
I never did see the appeal of football. Boxing either for that matter. Violence is not my thing. However, I always wanted to learn more about IPSC. My competitive shooting was limited to sporting clays, and the practice overwhelmed the competition by probably 200 to one.
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