Homework One

This is Becky, Becky Gasper to be exact. Becky enjoys the kinds of things every girl her age does. Drawing pictures, writing stories, going to the movies, or listening to her music are all activities that are pretty commonplace in her life. She even gets along with her two older siblings, offering to babysit if necessary. She also has aspirations to travel to Africa if she ever gets the opportunity. There is one thing about Becky that might be a surprise. She shoots things, really well.

Looking like an average babysitter with her smile and short blonde hair may not allude to the fact that Becky is made of tougher stuff than most girls, but she compensates with her steel resolve from trapshooting to spider killing. Her general demeanor is quiet and friendly, but when she speaks about her passion of trapshooting her eyes become serious and her tone steady.

To those unacquainted with it, trapshooting sounds like a very morbid sport. However in actuality it is quite affable. The sport has few needs as far as materials. Shotgun, clay discs called rocks or birds, and ammo are the only items needed. The field itself is a 16 to 25 foot shooting range equipped with a house, a machine that throws the discs in random trajectories, where the shooters line up to take their shots. The game starts with 25 discs being hurled by the houses haphazardly across the range. The shooter then proceeds to shoot each disc, hopefully. After their first 25 are shot or flung the amount destroyed are counted and averaged out. Then the shooters are handicapped by their average and moved back farther. This distance change is the challenge that even the most seasoned shooters deal with. At this point the game evolves. It is not longer a sport, but a science. Variables such as weather and distance must be dealt with by selecting the appropriate gear. For example 20 feet away in a heavy wind is going to require a tight choke to avoid scattered bullets and a heavier load to reduce wind effect.

Becky has never been introduced into trapshooting; instead she was born into it. Nearly her entire family competes in the sport. With her father and brother being heavily involved and talented in the sport Becky was quickly thrust into trapshooting. It’s become so intrinsic to her she rattles off massive amounts of info about the sport nonchalantly almost ignoring the time it takes to stop and think. That explains why she’s on the first team and has eleven or so medals from competitions.

“My school has always been willing to accept the awards our team has received, but when it comes to our team we’re acknowledged, not supported.” Becky said. The school displays medals and awards won by the team, but the team is not school sanctioned. The use of guns in the sport validates the school’s unease of accepting it yet they insist on displaying the medals Becky and her teammates won, with the use of guns.

A continued struggle with the school to accept trapshooting could have two diverse outcomes. The first outcome would cause an inclusion of the sport to the school, benefitting the athletes with more funding and support. The second outcome would instead push the school to completely separate itself from the team taking from display the multiple awards they have won in competition. Until then the only thing left to do is to just keep on shooting.