IDPA gripe!

I have seen enough to formulate some sugestions to the clubs IDPA director to resolve this issue.

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As the local club's MD for 15+ years, first IPSC and then IDPA, I can tell you now that I was never very receptive to suggestions about what I should be doing. I was always VERY receptive to offers of serious help. You want to run something different to what you have been seeing, you set it up and run it. More RO-SO-CoF design staff is always needed.

First sugestion is going to be get rid of the goofy wood box you have to shoot in and just make a taped off area in the form of a box so the wheel chair and still get in the same area.

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I don't know about your area, but there has not been a goofy wood box used to any real extent around here for a good number of years.

Second sugestion is going to be offer multiple shooting positions or do not peanilize for folks that cant get into a position perscribed by the schematic for the particular stage.

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This will require great care to be sure that the allowances made do not amount to preferential treatment. The stage should still be challenging to the handicapped shooter you are cutting slack for. But you will take care of that, right? (See above.)

I figure that anybody wishing to shoot regulation IDPA should be able to execute the Classifier as written. If he can't, he can be accomodated to allow him trigger time at local club events, but he is not going to get into a sanctioned match that way.

Maybe the simple answer to this dilema is what does the individual in the wheelchair expect from the sport? Does he want all kinds of freeby breaks? Or, is he there to enjoy the sport of competition shooting for himself. No need to compete with the other shooters, just see for himself how he would select to run the course...the hell with the penalites...just have a fun day shooting. He knows he's handicapped, no need for someone to tell him that at a match.

The Action Pistol course (a.k.a. Bianchi Cup) may be better suited for handicapped persons. Also it is a lot of fun, combining speed and accuracy without the use of awkward shooting positions. As far as altering rules to accommodate one, you are essentially discriminating against others. Personally I wouldn't have a problem with it but I don't shoot for medals, I shoot for fun.

This whole shooting box thing sounds ridiculous. Doesn't IDPA have some policy or range design statement discouraging silly foot-faults?

It would also seem reasonable that the procedural for shooting from other than the inaccessible port should be a single sort of procedural-in-substitution-for-compliance available ONLY to a disabled shooter, that's ONE penalty instead of per-shot as would be a proper penalty for a gamer.

Isn't there also some stage design guidance in IDPA meant to keep the events from becoming footraces?

This whole shooting box thing sounds ridiculous.

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As I said earlier, around here we don't use shooting boxes.
The Nationals doesn't use shooting boxes.
I didn't know they used shooting boxes in Virginia.

It would also seem reasonable that the procedural for shooting from other than the inaccessible port should be a single sort of procedural-in-substitution-for-compliance available ONLY to a disabled shooter,

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Seems reasonable to me, since I don't believe in giving anybody a free ride. The disabled folks I know worry a lot less about their limitations than the able bodied around them. It is more about overcoming their limitations than getting accomodated.

that's ONE penalty instead of per-shot as would be a proper penalty for a gamer.

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You are not informed on IDPA. IDPA never gives a procedural penalty per shot, that is IPSC. It is one penalty for each fault per stage in IDPA.

Isn't there also some stage design guidance in IDPA meant to keep the events from becoming footraces?

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Yes, but even the ten yards given in stage design policy can seem like a long way.


At the shoot I went to today, there were three stages requiring firing on the move. They could have been negotiated in a wheelchair by shooting from cover with one P.E. or we could have had a lot of fun with someone acting as orderly to push the wheelchair while its occupant shot. I bet there would have been a movement toward EVERYBODY shooting from a wheelchair in that style. Yee-HAW.
One stage required shooting from low cover. I would not penalize a shooter in a wheelchair who got behind those barrels at all. He is pretty low to start with.

The first three gun match I shot in had a stage that required right handed shooters to switch their rifle to their left side and then shoot the stage. Only one problem for me...I'm blind in my left eye so there I was with my rifle mounted on my left shoulder trying to use the sights with my right eye. Didn't work. They should have had the same setup in reverse for the left handers but they didn't. They got a walk on the stage.

Frustrating? Yeah, but it taught me something. Don't get in a situation where I need to shoot my long guns left handed.

The first three gun match I shot in had a stage that required right handed shooters to switch their rifle to their left side and then shoot the stage. Only one problem for me...I'm blind in my left eye so there I was with my rifle mounted on my left shoulder trying to use the sights with my right eye. Didn't work. They should have had the same setup in reverse for the left handers but they didn't.

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They should have used the course design to make you want to switch shoulders. This would be acceptable if they made it so that switching shoulders was an option. If they make it the best option, some people would use it, and be rewarded. You'd still be at a disadvantage, but not an unreasonable or unrealistic disadvantage. I agree they should have also made it mirror imaged, so the lefties shot the same course in the same fashion.

A wheel chaired person is certainly not going to solve a real life shooting problem by jumping out of the chair and going prone ...

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No, but handicapped people DO sometimes get dumped out of the chair by an attacker, or overturned in a general rush for the door in a crowd situation. Being able to shoot from prone in that situation would be a significant and important defensive skill, worth testing for.

pax

That sort of testing is best done in a training environment or at least with a student of the same approach to defensive shooting assisting. I don't want to dump somebody out of a wheelchair for a match stage.

I don't want to dump somebody out of a wheelchair for a match stage.

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No, of course not.

But you might simply assist them out of the chair so they can shoot the stage.

Or am I missing something??

pax

a year ago I shattered my left tibial plateau had it pinned back together and was no weight bearing for 3 1/2 months

I went to our IDPA matches and competed in the courses of fire I felt I could complete safely

I still have problems with that knee but I understand that this is something I'm going to have to deal with for the rest of my life and I had better figure out how I can make it with in the scope of my abilities.

.02

.40-.45

USPSA stage started in a bathtub and two shooters too fat to fit the tub.


Were two shooters in the tub together? Who sits in a tub wearing IPSC gear? Was this a Cialis commercial? I never understand why the two folks in those are in separate tubs.

I once saw an IPSC stage with folks on a fake horse. One shooter was so fat that ...

Anyway, I shouldn't talk - could lose a few.

I once saw an IPSC stage with folks on a fake horse.

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Last CAS matches I went to, Ol' Splinters, the full size rocking horse, was pretty much retired. Too many of the shooters too arthritic to get on and off.

Again, there should be some guidance available from the National group. Ignoring the handicapped is going to involve them in an ADA law-suit.

The largest problem is how to design a challenging stage, then allow for it to be "handicap accessible". There are various handicaps out there. Dyslexia is a handicap, does that mean no written clues in a stage? How about color-blindness? The use of flashing lights at a certain rpm has been proven to induce seizure activity in some people, as well.

Handicaps aren't always a wheel-chair bound person. Can you require weak-hand shooting of someone, maybe a combat vet, who lost a finger or two to an IED?

The idea that someone should be allowed a concession in competition will always turn around to bite the majority of the competitors. Perhaps the answer lies in dis-qualifying those who cannot complete a stage as designed from the competitive standings. After all, they're not out there to win, just to practice, right?

Again, there should be some guidance available from the National group. Ignoring the handicapped is going to involve them in an ADA law-suit.

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I doubt it. A private club running a competitive/recreational event open to the public does NOT implicate all the so-called public policy issues of running a hotel or restaurant or even an ordinary furniture store.

Being NOT a "professional" event where people are trying to make a living, I also don't see any ADA implications related to the very real "right to earn a living" in any IDPA event ever, or even local-club IPSC events. It's not quite like the PGA with "reasonable accommodations" being required.

I know that I would never press an ADA claim for such boorish behavior by people running an IDPA event, no matter how motivated or willing to foolishly spend money the client might be.

Help me out here. The stage requires that you move from one box into another, and they specify that you must step? This guy moved from one box to another, but because no one had the brains to consider his short roll a "step," he got a procedural, and the OP doesn't think that's fair?

Well, you could argue that he's making too big a deal out of it--I guess--but explain where he's wrong, please? For one thing, why the strictness on the word "step?" Are they afraid you might skip?

All that said, it sounds like this guy ran into a doofus RO, not the IDPA organization as a whole.

Sorry guys. If you remember a few years ago, there was a big "problem" in the Men's PGA (pro-golf) because a man wasn't physically able to walk the full 18 hole course. The guy called "unfair" because by rule, he wasn't able to ride to the tees in a golf cart. Well, by rule, competitors had to WALK.... when all settled, the rule remained.
Now, all our shooting games are just that.... games. In those designed to simulate "real- life", if you can't walk or run to the next stage, well, you can't. If you're wheelchair bound, you just may be unable to make the moves that an unencumbered shooter may be able to make that might put himself in the best position to survive a shooting.
Just how does any shooting organization make life fair? Maybe the term "handicapped" is the wrong term, but how do you make "even" the disparity between a person in a wheelchair and a person capable of running like the wind? And even if you can, so what. The person capable of climbing fences and shooting accurately versus the person that can't is just life.
So you join the shooting games. Why should the afflicted be given points for not being to do what is required?
Wanna even things up in the game? Add a wheelchair for the able.
Other than that, if you can't do the stage, and you know what's required, accept the points-loss.
Hell, it's just a game.
Real life has it's own requirements for all involved.

All that said, it sounds like this guy ran into a doofus RO, not the IDPA organization as a whole.

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Exactly.

A course of fire can be adjusted to both meet the needs of, and challenge, a shooter in a wheel chair.

We have a gentlemen with 82 years under his belt that shoots with our club. We assist him while he moves from point to point and we DON'T penalize him for things he can NOT physically do.

we DON'T penalize him for things he can NOT physically do.

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Makes sense to me, since, after all, it's just a game.
As for the PGA, it isn't just a game.
The shooting sports at the higher levels may not be just a game, either. When there is a wheelchair bound IDPA shooter who regularly places with the master class shooters, I'll reconsider. For now, I'll use the refrain "it's just a game" as a reason not to add insult to injury, rather than as an excuse to do so.

Eric, assuming that it was not possible to wheel in over the 1xwhatever in the back, lean around to engage the targets, then back out and move to the next

STUPID

shooting box to repeat the nonsense, I hereby conclude that the match RO has committed a "failure to do right" by giving the shooter a 5-second procedural for shooting from where he could see and engage the target(s).

As described, you have a requirement for a wheelchair-bound shooter to go to a place where, in real life, he would NEVER go.

Sounds like absolutely NO advantage to the shooter, either--he had to engage from farther away than everyone else.

How was the next

STUPID

shooting box configured?

Can anyone here say "trip hazard"? If even ONE person has stumbled over those 2x4s in the past, your club would appear to be "on notice" of a potential problem.

I've heard from some IPSC shooters that steel squares 36 inches on a side made out of 1/4-inch rod were often used years ago, SO LONG AS THE GROUND OR GRAVEL OR CONCRETE would not allow the thing to pop up when stepped on, for pretty obvious reasons.