I don't think the shooting sports outlook is nearly as dark as some would suggest. I shoot at two different clubs. One of them hosts the Iowa State University Trap and Skeet Club, the other the same from the University of Northern Iowa. Both are officially sponsored groups of those two public universities. And both clubs host several several high school shooting teams as part of the Scholastic Clay Target Program. Now when I was a lad in high school, we had an archery team and a rifle team (both of which shot in the heating tunnels underneath the school, although the archers moved outside in good weather). But we did not have a trap team!
I'd also note that both those clubs (they're Izaak Walton affiliates) teach the required Hunter Education courses in their respective areas. I'm part of the instructional staff at one of them, and we have no shortage of youngsters coming through our program. We often have quite a few single mothers bringing their kids, and some of the single moms end up getting involved too. And we'll often have some female vet med students from Iowa State, who apparently think that since they're likely to be treating hunting dogs when they enter practice, maybe they ought to know something about hunting.
That gets me smiling when I think about the future of our sport--whether we're talking shooting or hunting. But for you folks fighting the lead bans, make noise! Ask for the "good science" showing that lead really is a threat to upland game. Point out the fact that since the previous lead ban on waterfowl, the bald eagle has gone from endangered to threatened to delisted. If what we're doing now ain't broke, why does it need fixing?
