Talk:Marksmanship

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It seems a bit unfortunate that a wikipage on sport shooting leads to a section on military use of firearms.

readers looking to learn about target sport marksmanship could be misled into thinking that the shooting sports are only about learning to kill.

[edit] Marksmanship - Military or Civilian the Theory's the Same.

Thats a very general statement to make, The majority of people looking up the priciples of Marksmanship would be military people. A lot of the Theory of Small arms Fire was developed by the Military and is mredundant to The Sports Target Shooter, You must remember that the Majority of Shooting done by the Military (well, outside the US Military anyway) is at 4' Targets (Speaking from Personal experience and I am a qualified Military Marksman)

This Article is a General one on Marksmanship, and as its in its Infancy its better to keep the Terms General rather than start a thread on Target Marksmanship, Hunting Marksmanship, or Military Marksmanship.

Regards.

[edit] Integrating military and general marksmanship

I have inserted a section called Fundamentals of Rifle Marksmanship' even though they duplicate some of the original entry from the US Army manual. I am leaving the duplicate sections for the moment, pending a Wikipedia editor's evaluation. As a competition shooter of nearly 30 years experience (I've led a national championship team), I believe there is no difference between military and civilian techniques: shooters use whatever works best for them, and overlap is unavoidable.

Similar sections should be inserted that specifically address handgun and shotgun marksmanship. I feel qualified to comment upon on the former, less so on the latter.

There could also be a section briefly describing the various types of marksmanship events (bullseye, silhouette, action shooting, etc) but that decision should be left to our long-suffering editors.

68.2.139.236 23:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the opening statement at the top 100% and it angers me that a book titled "Marksmanship" includes facsimiles of the human form as targets. Incuding being exceedingly distasteful, there are ethical, psychological and legal issues that make the use of the human form as a shooting target dangerous. To begin with those who oppose the non-military/non-police use of firearms can use this book as an argument against those who legally use firearms for other purposes therefore supporting their arguments. I am suspicious of the person who has published these targets in this book for that reason and the others you will find below. The purpose of using the human form as a target is to desensitize people to make it easier for them to shoot and possibly kill other humans. I have no intention of ever killing another human, so do not even like seeing a target of the human form. There have been court cases and legal precedents regarding practising shooting on targets representing the human form where premeditation of murder was proven based on this. A case could be make of premeditated murder or attempted murder if there was say, a shooting accident and the defendant had at some time practised shooting at a human form target. I once had a police officer attempt to gift me some human silhouette targets. He had a reputation of being shady. I would like the original contributor to remove the human silhouette targets from the book and replace them with types of targets that were more traditionally used by marksmen or to use more inclusive terminology "sharpshooters". Annie Oakley was definitely a fantastic shot as well as currently Dr. Susan Nattrass, to mention two shooters who are not "men".

[edit] Integerating Civlian and Military marksmanship

• First off I am the orignal "author" (i.e. I started this wikibook).
• I am ex military and ex sport shooter (the law changes here in Australian sort of ruined my enjoyment and the practicality of sport shooting here, for me)
• I agree that the underlying of civil and military marksmanship are the same, e.g. position and hold, sight alignment, trigger manipulation etc.
• However I disagree with the sentiment that "readers looking to learn about target sport marksmanship could be misled into thinking that the shooting sports are only about learning to kill."
  • First off marksmanship does not only mean target sports marksman ship. It is equally applicable to shooting in the sport of hunting, shooting in the recreation of plinking, but also shooting in the context of military or law enforcement.
  • An article about marksmanship generally (which is what this is hence the title "Marksmanship" as opposed to for example "Miliatary Marksmanship" or "Civilian Marksmanship" or "Marksmanship for the <insert discipline here> shooter" ) should cover all types of marksmanship, not just sports shooting, and if I recall corretly my oroginal contributions did not present any difference between different calsses of marksmanship. other than perhaps to include terms which are more widely used in a military context (which is not to say that they are not used or have no application in a civillian context, "first catch", "first graze" are example.
  • I am happy for people to replace diagrams which contain shaped or abstract human shapes with other shaped targets, however it strikes me as being a biut rude and a bit unreasonable to take them down and not replace them, as regardless of the shape of the targets, the content is relevant to a discussion of marksmanship overall.
  • It should be born in mind that targets shaped as animals e.g. for metalic silhouette - night also be offensive or distasteful some people.
  • I don't believe that just because something might be distasteful or even IS distasteful or ethically difficult for some people that it should not be included. There are lots of articles in wikipedia and probably lots of wikibooks that cover topics that are distasteful or ethically challenging for some people, for example religious topics. That is not reason to exclude them and I don;t think that because some individuals find the use of human or abstract human targets distasteful that they should be excluded.
  • This is not an article on ethics or morality it is an article on marksmanship. IF you want to discuss the ethics or morals of shooting firearms, then a more appropriate place might be a book on that topic. This is a book on the practical and theoretical aspects of marksmanship
• I think that reference to particular disciplines in sport, civil or military shooting, e.g discussion of ISPC rules (which by the way is - or was -a civilian "target sport" which does use abstract human forms as targets, e.g. pepper poppers)) is probably out of place in a book about marksmanship, other than as asides and examples for comparative purposes.
• I think if you want an article specifically on "sport target" shooting or a particular discipline in sport target shooting, such as ISU, sillouhette, or whatever that should create a separate book on that discipline. However a book on a given discipline was not intended in this book. This was intended to be a discussion of the theoretical and practical aspects of marksman ship.
• I see no legal issues in using human shaped targets in a book.
• I concede that there are potentially ethical issues. However some people would content that merely having a book on marksman ship is in itself an ethical issue. I have no intention of pandering to them.
• I do not recall any instance in my original contribution to killing or injuring people, (Other than the graphics in question - whcih I re-iterate I am happy for someone else to repalce with graphics which replace convey the same content with different shaped targets).
• I don't agree that the majority of people looking for an article on marksmanship would be military. However I don't see that a s a reson to ignore the fact that the military has an interest in marksmanship and that some methods of marksmanship may be more militarily orentated than others (or indeed that some methods may be more civilian orientated).
• I also don;t see why either civilian or military aspects of marksmanship should be ignored.
• I do understand the purpose of human shaped as targets in desensitizing people to the taboo of killing people, such as examined by Grossman, Marshall and others. However I think it is a very, very wide stretch of the imagination to think that using diagrams with human shaped targets in an article on marksmanship will desensitize a person sufficiently for them to find it easier or possible to shoot people. That type of conditioning requires more than the use viewing of pictures of targets that a human or abstract human in form. SO while I agree that the use of human/abstract human targets is a tool in desensitizing people to kill other people, I can not in my wildest imagination see that the inclusion of the diagrams I included would in anyway contribute to desensitizing a reader of the book/article, anymore than the inclusion a say a historical panting, a news photograph or a screen shot from a video game depicting killing people would contribute to desensitizing a person.
• I would however concede that actually suing human/abstract human target in marksmanship practice might a desensitizing effect under the right conditions. However I do no recall advocating the use of such targets in my earlier contributions.
• Again if you don't want human shaped targets in the diagrams, thats fine - but please replace instead of simply deleting the diagrams supplied. I.e. contribute somthing yourself instead of just crticising/destorying someone else's contribution.
• I will say that I do think it is very naive though to think that it will make a difference to remove or replace human shaped targets, and I think it is rude and ignorant to assume that your moral and ethical beliefs are more important, more correct or should take precedence over mine.