September 2, 2007
A new campaign aims to attract juniors to the nation's rifle ranges, reports Peter Munro.
CHILDREN as young as 12 are increasingly taking up shooting in their spare time in response to a push by gun clubs to attract junior members.
The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia, which already promotes "come and try" days at rifle ranges to families with young children, will this month launch its "sign up a junior" campaign.
Members of the association, the largest sporting shooters' group in Australia, have been urged to enrol their "son or daughter, grandchild, nephew or niece".
As part of the pitch, the group has discounted its annual fees to children and will give away a $3500 quad bike to one new junior member.
SSAA national president Bob Green this month wrote to the group's 104,000 members saying that new blood was needed to "save the sport you love and wipe the smile off the anti-gun lobby's face".
Essential to that cause was introducing children "to the world of shooting at an early age", he wrote. "[It] really doesn't matter if they are five or 15."
Figures obtained by The Sunday Age show there is already a surge of interest in shooting among children.
Nationally, the SSAA's junior stocks have risen by more than 7 per cent this year.
In NSW, the number of new members aged 12 to 17 soared from 15 in 2000 to an estimated 400 last year.
SSAA Victoria runs up to 50 junior programs a year that invite first-time shooters to try firing rifles at targets, which can include hunting images such as elephants and rhinoceros.
The number of junior gun licences approved by Victoria Police has risen from 4750 to 5063 in five years.
Applicants must first pass a safety exam and are restricted to using prescribed firearms and only under the direct supervision of an adult licence-holder.
Edward Elder, of Kilsyth, obtained a licence on the day he turned 12 in July. His mother Stephanie, 44, obtained her full adult licence from police on the same day, while her husband Rod, also 44, has held a shooting licence since he was 15.
Their eldest son Robert, 17, this month won the south-east zone school championships for clay pigeon shooting.
Edward said he enjoyed playing computer games involving hunting big game, such as deer, but preferred to shoot clay-pigeon targets.
Robert said shooting was an addictive sport.
"I see it as adrenalin and I feel anxious when I'm too far away from it … getting out there with a gun, firing it, the recoil and everything."
The Melbourne Gun Club, where the brothers train every Saturday, has had a fivefold increase in the number of new juniors since 2002, taking its tally to about 500 young members, including many children who elect to take shooting as a school sport.
Gun Control Australia's president John Crook said: "Guns and puberty are a dangerous mix. Targeting juniors increases the likelihood of gun addiction. The trouble with kids is they may think violence is a way of solving problems."
But Rod Drew, the chief executive of Field and Game Australia, which markets trial shooting days to young families, said strict supervision on young licence-holders, "right down to someone else loading their gun", prevented mishaps.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/natio...ung-guns-firing/2007/09/01/1188067438592.html
