Drizzt
May 13, 2003, 09:43 PM
Associated Press Worldstream
May 10, 2003 Saturday
SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
DISTRIBUTION: Europe; Britian; Scandinavia; Middle East; Africa; India; Asia; England
LENGTH: 832 words
HEADLINE: In Norway, more women take up hunting and sports shooting
BYLINE: WILLIAM STOICHEVSKI; Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: OSLO, Norway
BODY:
The gunfire in this city at night is not an angry, heart-stopping racket.
Through the crack of rifle shot, there's often a feminine giggle.
On the firing line of the city's Ekeberg Sports Hall is a woman, her smile as clear as the gaping centers shot through paper targets. Wearing stiff, canvass coveralls that cling like Velcro to firing mats, Grete Andresen, a University of Oslo administrator, snaps quick advice to young shooters beside her before she takes aim again.
According to the Norwegian Federation of Sports, twice as many women shoot competitively and for fun as did 10 years ago. For every 10 registered sharpshooters in the Nordic country, one is a markswoman taking aim on the firing range, hunting in the thick forests or shooting targets in a grueling biathlon.
In a country of 4.5 million residents, approximately 30,000 are members of sport shooting clubs.
In cosmopolitan Oslo, the capital, or in the natural splendor of fabled Telemark, Norwegian women are swelling the ranks of trained sharpshooters.
Andresen, 54, joined the Norstrand Shooting Club in part to be nearer to her daughter, who had taken up shooting as sport.
"I think it's pretty boring sitting on the sofa or waiting in the car," she said. "But I could never shoot a deer."
Her sentiment echoes Gisle Bach, a 17-year-old high-school student who likens aiming for the bull's-eye to hitting other personal goals. She owns one of an estimated 1 million guns carried in cases, stored on farms, or locked in police trunks in Norway.
Despite the high number of weapons, Norwegian society is not gun-oriented. In Oslo, police still keep their guns locked inside the trunks of their cruisers. They only recently lobbied to carry sidearms after discovering caches of illicit automatic weapons.
Olaf Schjoell, secretary of the Norwegian Hunting and Fishing Society, said when people apply for a firearm, it's usually not for self-defense.
"It's to go hunting," Schjoell said. "And a big part of hunting education is safety on the hunt, safety with the weapon, and then we also train the shooting-range operators."
Andresen said she preferred shooting on the range with a 6 1/2-kilogram (14 pound), 22-caliber rifle, the firearm of choice for biathletes and novices alike.
According to the Norwegian Sport Shooting Union, a major draw of shooting is the relative speed by which new people can start competing.
Andresen entered competition as soon as she started in April 2002, albeit against children. In the shooting hierarchy, her daughter competes two classes higher.
Women competing alongside men is a long tradition in egalitarian Norway. The army has several all-female combat units, and the Royal Navy boasts the world's first female submarine skipper.
The success of Norwegian women like Lindy Hansen and Birgit Roenningen as World Cup sport-shooting medallists may have encouraged some women to take up the sport, but markswoman Andresen explained at her shooting club that she first picked up a rifle because it added a special dimension to her life.
"When I'm here, I'm here. I decide that I must be here and to leave everything else away from here. I learn to concentrate, and I always have something I feel like talking about," she said.
According to a new study by the Organization for European Co-operation and Development, sport shootings new appeal among Norwegian women has coincided with a rise in juvenile crime among Norwegian teenage girls.
The report, Society at a Glance, says females between 13 and 19 in Norway account for 27 percent of juvenile crime in the country, the highest rate among the 30 affluent countries surveyed. Yet, while the connection between poverty and crime is well established, relative affluence distinguishes Norway's female shooters.
The sport utility vehicles, Mercedes Benzes and Land Rovers parked outside on practice night points to the sport's appeal to the affluent. A hunting course costs 2,500 kroner (US$340), an average rifle costs no less than 7,000 kroner (US$940), while the price tag on a handgun can read 25,000 kroner (US$3,355).
Shooting clubs charge 500 kroner (US$70) for memberships, but would-be sharpshooters first apply to the police for a 700 kroner (US$100) permit to buy the guns. The canvas coveralls can cost 3,000 kroner (US$400).
The National Sport Shooting Association says there are 550 shooting clubs in the country, and more continue to form. Meanwhile, 300,000 registered hunters played no part in the 15 gun-related killings reported during 2002.
The numbers on the firing line appear destined to grow, judging by the recruiting of children into the sport of shooting. Preadolescent boys and girls, whose shooting scores occupy regular columns on newspaper sports pages, open fire alongside adults at shooting clubs.
A recent newspaper ad promoting registration said simply: "Shooting school for boys and girls from (age) 4. Registration at 5:30 p.m. Bring a helmet."
May 10, 2003 Saturday
SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
DISTRIBUTION: Europe; Britian; Scandinavia; Middle East; Africa; India; Asia; England
LENGTH: 832 words
HEADLINE: In Norway, more women take up hunting and sports shooting
BYLINE: WILLIAM STOICHEVSKI; Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: OSLO, Norway
BODY:
The gunfire in this city at night is not an angry, heart-stopping racket.
Through the crack of rifle shot, there's often a feminine giggle.
On the firing line of the city's Ekeberg Sports Hall is a woman, her smile as clear as the gaping centers shot through paper targets. Wearing stiff, canvass coveralls that cling like Velcro to firing mats, Grete Andresen, a University of Oslo administrator, snaps quick advice to young shooters beside her before she takes aim again.
According to the Norwegian Federation of Sports, twice as many women shoot competitively and for fun as did 10 years ago. For every 10 registered sharpshooters in the Nordic country, one is a markswoman taking aim on the firing range, hunting in the thick forests or shooting targets in a grueling biathlon.
In a country of 4.5 million residents, approximately 30,000 are members of sport shooting clubs.
In cosmopolitan Oslo, the capital, or in the natural splendor of fabled Telemark, Norwegian women are swelling the ranks of trained sharpshooters.
Andresen, 54, joined the Norstrand Shooting Club in part to be nearer to her daughter, who had taken up shooting as sport.
"I think it's pretty boring sitting on the sofa or waiting in the car," she said. "But I could never shoot a deer."
Her sentiment echoes Gisle Bach, a 17-year-old high-school student who likens aiming for the bull's-eye to hitting other personal goals. She owns one of an estimated 1 million guns carried in cases, stored on farms, or locked in police trunks in Norway.
Despite the high number of weapons, Norwegian society is not gun-oriented. In Oslo, police still keep their guns locked inside the trunks of their cruisers. They only recently lobbied to carry sidearms after discovering caches of illicit automatic weapons.
Olaf Schjoell, secretary of the Norwegian Hunting and Fishing Society, said when people apply for a firearm, it's usually not for self-defense.
"It's to go hunting," Schjoell said. "And a big part of hunting education is safety on the hunt, safety with the weapon, and then we also train the shooting-range operators."
Andresen said she preferred shooting on the range with a 6 1/2-kilogram (14 pound), 22-caliber rifle, the firearm of choice for biathletes and novices alike.
According to the Norwegian Sport Shooting Union, a major draw of shooting is the relative speed by which new people can start competing.
Andresen entered competition as soon as she started in April 2002, albeit against children. In the shooting hierarchy, her daughter competes two classes higher.
Women competing alongside men is a long tradition in egalitarian Norway. The army has several all-female combat units, and the Royal Navy boasts the world's first female submarine skipper.
The success of Norwegian women like Lindy Hansen and Birgit Roenningen as World Cup sport-shooting medallists may have encouraged some women to take up the sport, but markswoman Andresen explained at her shooting club that she first picked up a rifle because it added a special dimension to her life.
"When I'm here, I'm here. I decide that I must be here and to leave everything else away from here. I learn to concentrate, and I always have something I feel like talking about," she said.
According to a new study by the Organization for European Co-operation and Development, sport shootings new appeal among Norwegian women has coincided with a rise in juvenile crime among Norwegian teenage girls.
The report, Society at a Glance, says females between 13 and 19 in Norway account for 27 percent of juvenile crime in the country, the highest rate among the 30 affluent countries surveyed. Yet, while the connection between poverty and crime is well established, relative affluence distinguishes Norway's female shooters.
The sport utility vehicles, Mercedes Benzes and Land Rovers parked outside on practice night points to the sport's appeal to the affluent. A hunting course costs 2,500 kroner (US$340), an average rifle costs no less than 7,000 kroner (US$940), while the price tag on a handgun can read 25,000 kroner (US$3,355).
Shooting clubs charge 500 kroner (US$70) for memberships, but would-be sharpshooters first apply to the police for a 700 kroner (US$100) permit to buy the guns. The canvas coveralls can cost 3,000 kroner (US$400).
The National Sport Shooting Association says there are 550 shooting clubs in the country, and more continue to form. Meanwhile, 300,000 registered hunters played no part in the 15 gun-related killings reported during 2002.
The numbers on the firing line appear destined to grow, judging by the recruiting of children into the sport of shooting. Preadolescent boys and girls, whose shooting scores occupy regular columns on newspaper sports pages, open fire alongside adults at shooting clubs.
A recent newspaper ad promoting registration said simply: "Shooting school for boys and girls from (age) 4. Registration at 5:30 p.m. Bring a helmet."