Celebrate Shooting

Now that Storm Ciara/Sabine is out the way, the village sport shooting club has put up some advertising to announce the 100th anniversary of the village club and the 80th Ottobeuren district (Gau) championship followed by a big party on Saturday followed as with any such event with church service on Sunday and a parade.

I have never taken any interest in the shooting clubs that are an important part of almost every village's cultural life. Much more than just target shooting but also a great opportunity for cross-generation contact. A lot of work is put into the youth side and it is notably very popular with the female sex. There are 4,701 such clubs with 500,000 members in Bavaria which has a population of 12 million. The clubs play a major role in such things as the Oktoberfest parades and indeed big annual Bavarian championships is held in one of the tents during the 16-day event - the 6,500 seater (for beer) "Schützenzelt" has an added area with 110 target ranges.

I have never thought about how the 1000s of participants at the Oktoberfest get their pistols & rifles onto the site but do know there are strict laws as to how guns and ammunition are stored in private homes. Yes, we do have the very rare home-shooting incident but it does show it is possible to allow responsible sportsmen to have such weapons without fear of losing one's "basic rights" (NRA/USA/Trump).