Changes in Shooting Sport

Why in news?

International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) proposed to make ranges across the world bullet-free by introducing laser shooting.

What is ‘laser shooting’?

• The sport of shooting currently has three disciplines—Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun.
• The shooters use either real bullets or pellets.
• If the change is forced, then the pistols and rifles used by sports shooters will fire laser beams at the targets instead of bullets.
• The IOC’s proposal is to bring this change only in Rifle and Pistol events for the time being.

Why is IOC proposing the change?

• Appeal - The most important reason is to make shooting more appealing to millennials, whose support and interest all sport needs to survive.
• Shooting flashy red beams will make the sport attractive and fashionable and engage a wider audience.
• The change will also make shooting television-friendly.
• Gun control norms - It will also take care of the complications involved in carrying weapons and ammunition by shooters while travelling from one country to another. This requires a lot of paperwork and clearances. e.g IOC faced a lot of trouble in getting these aspects sorted during the 2012 London Olympics because of the strict gun laws in the United Kingdom.
• Environment - Another important issue is that shooting at present is not completely environment-friendly.

• The bullets that the shooters use are made of lead, which gets into the atmosphere every time a shot is fired.
• The chemical can potentially have an adverse effect on the nervous system as well. Thousands of bullets are used at each shooting range every day.

What was the reaction to the move?

• The ISSF insist the sport will not change and have conveyed this to the IOC.
• Shooters are also not excited about laser shooting.
• But most of them do seem resigned to the fact that the change will eventually take place.

• They feel that the basic fabric of the sport will be impacted.
• The ISSF says that laser technology is as yet not developed to the level where it can create the same environment during competitions as real bullets.
• Shooters say that shooting involves a lot of intangibles like wind speed. Lasers will take those away and make the sport too literal and predictable.

• The biggest difficulty for governing bodies will be to fight the weapons lobby to bring the change.
• This is a multi-million dollar industry, which will be directly impacted if the sport moves from bullets to lasers.

Why should India be worried?

• Shooting is one of the few Olympic sports in which India has consistently done well.
• Such a fundamental change would undoubtedly severely impact the country’s prospects.

Source: The Indian Express