If the ATA is less relevant now look at the leaders that put us here.....

Who are the leaders the supervised the downslide of the ATA? Those are the people that have been here the longest. Do I have to name a few? Gipson, Kiner, Grebs, Shaw.

Shaw and Grebs have been Presidents previously. Kiner was there when dinosaurs roamed the planet.

Think about the awesome decisions. Moving the flagship competition to a gun hate state. The one time two yard reductions given out repeatedly. Making the targets easier and allowing faster ammo. Don't forget about the chain shoots that have hurt the clubs.

Nothing will change in the ATA. Thank those delegates that made the ATA what it isn't.

 

Jersey
Everything changes this year.

 

Explain please.

 

What ata and nssa leaders need to do is get off there thron and head down to Florida and go see how the jack links works. The shooters leave there securing plans to attend next year's event. Offer all the shooters a chance to make a few dollars. You need to give back, not sit on your hands and wonder why members and vendors stop attending. Some do not want change, isn't it obvious?

 

Jack Links is the biggest example of WHY NSSA and ATA will never return to what they were. People have moved on. Everyone gets a trophy t-ball killed off this countries competitive spirit, and shoots are no longer competitions nearly as much as they are a vacation occasionally interrupted by shooting. Sporting is MUCH more fun oriented than NSSA/ATA, if you want to compete, you can compete, but if you want to go have a fun time, NSCA is the better choice if for nothing else than the variety of presentations, variety of gun clubs, ect, if you've seen one skeet or trap field, you've seen them all.

Same thing happened with rifle, same thing happened with pistol. Benchrest is dying off, silhouette is functionally dead, but F-Class, ELR, and precision rifle are growing. Bullseye is dying off, but IDPA, ISPC, and two gun/three gun are growing. A lot of this is easily seen in the guns that people are buying and the gun markets that are doing well.

At the end of the day, sporting is what killed skeet and trap, and there is no going back.

The best bet, at club level, for survival, is to put in a sporting clays course if you have the room and $, and let the income from that subsidize trap and skeet. NSSA survives off of NSCA subsidization, NSC wouldn't be even close to viable were it not for the sporting shoots.

 

Watch the field at what was once a large skeet event. The Krieghoff masters at Forrest city in GA. The empty fields far outnumber the ones that are being used.

 

When I shot registered skeet in my state in the 80's we had over a hundred four gun shooters. Last year they had 15 four gun shooters.