Camp Perry, OH -(AmmoLand.com)- To Our National Matches partners – the NRA and to members of the shooting sports community, we wish to take this opportunity to clear the air on a news story that ran in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper and its digital online partner, Cleveland.com on June 26.
At the same time we wish to apologize for accidentally re-running the same story this afternoon, July 8 in the CMP’s Shooters’ News.
The headline read: Girard’s Brian ‘Gunny’ Zins out to prove he’s still the top shot of National Matches.” Great story. Our hat is off to Gunny Zins for chasing his 13th National Pistol Championship. We like Brian’s take-no-prisoner attitude – we even had an artist paint a 12-foot tall portrait of him on the wall of our championship airgun competition center at Camp Perry. We wish him well in his quest.
At issue was the back story within the same article.
“The National Pistol Matches are moving to the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, Ohio in 2017,” said Zins, according the story’s author veteran outdoor writer D’Arcy Egan.
After a great deal of painstaking discussion between the CMP, NRA and our National Matches hosts, the Ohio National Guard at Camp Perry, it was made clear that Gunny Zins spoke too soon about moving the matches. At this time the NRA has no intention of moving the pistol matches.
Unfortunately, today an eager CMP staff member grabbed the story based on the Gunny Zins championship quest, alone, and placed it in today’s Shooters’ News. Of course, it repeated not only Zins’ record-setting goals, it repeated statements that are premature, if not unfounded and the CMP leadership team deeply regrets the error.
However; this unfortunate repetition of Zins’ comments also provides CMP, NRA and the shooting sports community as a whole the opportunity to clear the air about the future of our sport. We all have the same goal – to advance what’s right about the shooting sports. Our two very large organizations have a vested interest in our sport and given the number of shooters in the U.S., they too collectively have an even larger investment in the time and money it takes to practice, travel and compete in local, regional and these grand National Matches.
Whether the National Matches continue at Camp Perry, or somewhere else down the road – no matter how long that road is, the bottom line is the competitive shooting sports industry has enough detractors without turning against ourselves. We relish the opportunity to conduct firearm safety training, marksmanship competitions and development of tomorrow’s competitors at our home
clubs, regional tournaments and at the National Matches. There’s plenty of room for improvement in a sport that continues to evolve. Our veteran shooters must pass the torch to a younger group of shooters and it is they, not us, who will ultimately dictate the direction of our sport. We are here to support our competitors.
The CMP and the NRA are in lockstep on that, let there be no doubt. We sincerely apologize for upsetting those who make this sport fun – you, the consumer. We wish Brian Zins and all those who will attempt to topple his records the best of luck.
About The Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP)
The Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) is a national organization dedicated to training and educating U. S. citizens in responsible uses of firearms and airguns through gun safety training, marksmanship training and competitions. The CMP is a federally chartered 501(c)(3) corporation that places its highest priority on serving youth through gun safety and marksmanship activities that encourage personal growth and build life skills.
For more information, please visit www.TheCMP.org.