How Russia Outshoots Us

Our shooters are not paid for shooting. They buy their own rifles and their own ammunition. And they are pretty much self-trained, with the result that even the best of them show faults that could be corrected if they shot under the direction of a good coach for a month. Frank Parsons was captain and coach of our team at Caracas, same as he was captain and coach of our team in the ISU matches at Oslo in 1952 and the Olympics a few weeks later. Parsons shot on American international teams years ago and is a long-time student of rifle shooting. He knows his business. But how can a coach ask a man to make a change in his way of shooting only a week before a big match? A week is all Parsons had with our Caracas shooters.

WHY ARE THEY BETTER?

It isn't only the Russians who beat us. The Swiss, the Swedes, the Finns and sometimes the Norwegians beat us. Their countries have only a fraction of our population. They do not subsidize their shooters. Why are they better than we are?

For one thing, they are better because, relative to their population, they have so many more proper places to shoot. Where does a resident of New York or Chicago or San Francisco go to shoot? Buenos Aires has a magnificent range inside the city limits. Caracas has a fine range within easy distance. Oslo, Stockholm, Zurich, Helsinki and many other European cities have ranges close at hand. Relatively speaking, our rifle shooters are poor relations.

Europeans do not share our quaint notion that a man can't shoot unless he is belly to the ground and making a tripod rest of his elbows and body. They think a man who can't shoot a rifle kneeling and standing doesn't know what a rifle is about.

Our rifle shooting, except for indoors and in the armed services, has been dominated for years by men who will not fire a shot in competition from any position except prone. They are good at their game though they have frequently failed to prove themselves better than the men of other countries. They are not good at anything else.

The scores at Caracas, like the scores at the last Olympics, tell a story. The story is: "We can't shoot." The reason is that so many of our shooters are boys who don't want to grow up.