CIVILAIN MARKSMANSHIP PROGRAM News
by Ron Benge
The following article was taken from the CMP online news bulletin. Remember, we are talking about junior shooters from age 10 to 19. The report does not mention the number of shooters, but our club has over 100 kids in our combined junior shooting programs each year. If the BCSC is average we are talking 426,000 young shooters without a firearm-related injury-causing accident. I bet baseball, football, soccer and the other contact sports cannot post a record like this. In spite of this record, we just had 6 out of 8 parents refuse to let their Cub Scout child take a rifle safety class because they would be shooting BB guns.
CMP Affiliated Clubs report “Zero” accidents in Club Annual Reports.
The CMP now has over 5,000 affiliated clubs and organizations. 4,260 of the CMP affiliates are either youth shooting sports organizations or regular clubs that sponsor junior activities. Each year, CMP affiliates must submit annual reports that provide information about club activities during the past year. One of the key questions concerns whether there were any firearms-related injury-causing incidents in club activities. The CMP is pleased to report that there were no reported firearms-related injury-causing incidents among its nearly 5,000 affiliates during the program year. Marksmanship is indeed one of the safest of all sports!
My children shot in the BCSC junior rifle program for several years and now my grandchildren are shooting in the 4-H program and will soon be shooting in the junior rifle program. If I did not feel it was completely safe they would not have shot in the programs.