Pre - DSCI course .

[Canis]

As a sport (and i'm talking about shooting in general here), If we rely on shooting skills being handed down from one generation to the next within families within very few years the number of practitioners of our sport will be a handful.

 

in virtually every walk of life over the last 100 years or so we seem to be going through a process of requiring qualification to carry out all sorts of activity. the formalisation of training for a given activity seems to be more prevelant where others are likely to get hurt or suffer financially from an unskilled person carrying out the activity.

 

heres a list of a few activities that have already demanded mandatory qualifications

Driving a car

Being a gasfitter

Flying a plane

being an electrician

fitting a double glazed window

 

A few that don't require mandatory qualifications yet

 

Being a Mechanic

Sailing a Yacht(assuming you are not financially gaining for doing so)

Shooting.

 

The interesting thing with sailing is that The RYA(sailings equivalent of the BASC) have worked to produce a series of courses to provide the skills such that the Yachtmaster comercial qualification is run in association with the ministry of transport. Inevitably third parties have started requiring RYA qualifications if you want to hire a yacht but is this such a bad thing. Ok -the RYA makes a profit running these courses but the profit gets spent for the members benefit - not lining someones pocket. I think most sailors can see the end of being able to sail without qualifications, but undoubtedly the voluntary well respected training system of the RYA has helped to stave this off as long as possible and will probably ensure that when official regulation happens to private sailing, it will just be adoption of the RYA system.

 

Surely we would be better off embracing the RYA model and ensuring that having quality firearms related training courses in place already provided by the BASC so that when the spectre of mandatory training for shooting sports appears. I could argue that the fact that FEO's are recognising the worth of DSC1 & DSC2 at this point is probably a good thing.

 

That said,I can empathise with someone who despite having gained the skills required for deer stalking from parents and friends may currently being asked for a DSC 1 by the to justify their deer variation, at a cost, when someone in an equal situation in the next county is not