Adapted from National 4-H Shooting Sports
4-H Shooting Sports . . . a RISKY BUSINESS!
That should have gotten your attention. And it should have raised several questions in your thoughts. . . For example: Is this guy nuts?, or . . . Is this guy right? Is a 4-H Shooting Sports program really a RISK?
To prepare ourselves adequately to lead a successful, enjoyable, and safe shooting sports program we need to truthfully answer those questions. And for starters we need to know:
What is a Risk?
Simply put risk is the CHANCE OF LOSS. That implies that just about everything we do in life is a risk, from getting out of bed in the morning to drinking a cup of coffee to driving to work (or home again) or running a program involving youngsters who are in need of adequate and basic safety and handling training, and firearms, mechanical devices which have no thought processes nor concern for safety.
So, now that we know that running a shooting sports program that constitutes a risk, we should proceed by learning how to manage risk. Managing a risk can be done in four ways:
- Assume - Well, that’s what you have done by deciding to have a 4-H shooting sports program.
- Reduce - You reduce the risk by recognizing the hazards of the program and working toward eliminating them, another name is ‘safety engineering’.
- Avoidance - As the next step, you work to avoid hazards you can not reduce, such as unsafe backstops. It could also mean you re-consider your assumption of the risk, by canceling the program.
- Transfer - The final step is to transfer the responsibility for the results of these assumed risks, perhaps through an insurance policy.