playing the publicity game

I admit it – I do not watch Shooting USA, partially because I do not think my cable subscription picks up the Outdoors Channel, and partially because watching other people shoot really is not all that fun. Sure, it can be educational and all, if you are looking for specific means and methods of improving your score at X event, but for entertainment value? Meh. I would much rather do the shooting myself.
At any rate, since I do not watch the show, I do not really have a firm grasp on what demographic they are targetting, but I am still somewhat surprised that any nationally televised show concerning firearms would pass on the opportunity to cover Boomershoot. Boomershoot, for those unfamiliar with the concept, really does not differ too much from “normal” long-range shooting… unless you consider the implementation of small boxes of explosives as targets a significant difference. Yup, in this particular event, you are not perforating paper, or steel, or anything like that – you are nailing boxes filled with “Boomerite” (thanks for the correction, Mr. Huffman), that make a rather gratifying boom when they explode.
The end result of all this is that an otherwise boring event to observe (guys trying to nail targets at 350-750 yards away) suddenly turns significantly more interesting with the introduction of explosives, and the resulting explosions.
Is it mainstream? Not so much. But it sure looks like a blast (literally and figuratively), and that is all you really need to get people interested. And while equipment does matter at those ranges, and larger calibers are typically suggested/required to get the necessary impact velocity and force, this kind of thing is pretty much accessible to everyone (even with my 16″ M1A, all I would need is a 10x scope, and I might be able to plug a boomer or two). And, hell, when it comes to the equipment, you pretty much have everything from ohmygodtheycan(not)shootdownairliners .50 caliber rifles with laser-designating, holographic, reach-out-and-touch it, 2000x scopes, down to dad’s old deer gun with whatever optic he left on it after his last hunt.
And who does not enjoy a few explosions?
Well, apparently Jim Scoutten, of Shooting USA, does not.
Unfortunately for him, though, other television shows have gone where he has chosen not to. In addition to covering cowboy-action shooting in the past, Wreckreation Nation did a 20-minute piece on backyard variants of Boomershoot in last week’s episode. Rather than just big white cardboard boxes, one group of individuals attached small binary explosive charges to clay pigeons, and then did what one does with airborne clay pigeons, and the another group stuck between one and ten pounds of a similar binary explosive (neither recipie was disclosed) in targets ranging from stuffed animals to an old car. Aside from one moron in the second group negligently discharging his rifle (downrange, and no one was hurt), both events were shown as being safe (or, at least, as safe as any other recreational activity portrayed on this show), fun, and throughly entertaining – which seems like exactly the right kind of portrayal we need to get people interested in shooting sports.
And, obviously, blowing stuff up by means of explosive targets and firearms is suitable for national television and news coverage.
Of course, Boomershoot has already had national news coverage, and will again this year… I guess Mr. Scoutten did not quite realize that. It seems somewhat interesting that “authorized journalists” and parties otherwise unassociated with firearm owners would go out of their way to cover Boomershoot and events like it, while a television channel supposedly dedicated to the shooting sports would not – sounds like someone is missing the boat, here.
*shrugs* It is his television show, and he can bloody well cover whatever he wants, and not cover whatever he does not want, on it. But his flippant dismissal of what is becoming a rather significant event in our community, and has been a valuable publicity and recruitment tool, strikes me as either willful ignorance, or pointless eliteism, and neither is particularly useful nor helpful.
More here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.