From 30 contestants to now over 5,000.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: In 2009, the first year of the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League championship, the contest drew 30 shooters. This past June, there were 5,134 competitors, more than 20,000 spectators, and a slew of big-name sponsors.
According to Bloomberg, the event is now the world’s biggest shooting-sport event.
Currently, trap-shooting is the fastest growing sport in Minnesota high schools, and it was recently introduced in neighboring Wisconsin and Arizona.
“This is the best thing to happen to the shooting sports in 50 years,” said Dennis Knudson, a 74-year-old lifelong trap shooter, after watching his grandson compete. “It’s so fun to see the youngsters stepping up. It will preserve the sport, and they’ll do it for the rest of their lives.”
While anti-gun activists are none too enthused about the expansion of gun sports in the Midwest, the firearms industry has expectedly been doing what it can to stoke the burgeoning movement.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates the average 16-year-old competitor will spend $75,000 over his or her lifetime, while the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League estimates teams’ spending will top $5 million this year.
Courtney Olson went from being mortified at the thought of guns in their house outside of Minneapolis to buying her son, Zac, a $1,400 shotgun and $600 Glock 17 to nurture his newfound aspiration of becoming a police officer. “To see your kid this happy is incredible,” she told Bloomberg.
Speaking about the glut of violent shootings that have occurred in schools across the nation, Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told the Los Angeles Times that underlying each high-profile shooting are thousands of incidents involving American youths that never make national headlines, or even get noticed locally.
Each year, for example, about 2,000 teens and young children commit suicide with guns at home, he acknowledged.
“School shootings are part of a much bigger problem,” he said. “There are 86 people who die from bullets on an average day.”