Gaborone Rifle Club chairperson, Jon Smuts said they are not able to get registered as an association. “We have followed and provided all the necessary, required paperwork for us to get registered but to no avail.
Hence we decided to join South African shooting clubs to be able to shoot competitively at an international level, under the umbrella of those clubs,” he said. Smuts explained that Botswana is the only country in Southern Africa that does not recognise shooting as a sport. He said the sport is recognised in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
He said that given the opportunity to be a registered shooting society, they have the potential to put Botswana on the international map. Smuts said rifle shooting is not commonly practised in the country because not many people are aware of it, hence the Gaborone Rifle Club drew up a shooting calendar whereby they host various shooting disciplines once a month.
The club recently hosted the Clay Pigeon Shotgun competition and within the competition, there were three disciplines, the amateur trap association (ATA), down the line (DTL), and automatic ball trap.
The competitors took aim at 50 clays (targets that are shot at). Smuts said each discipline has its own different level of difficulty. He said shooters normally enter the discipline depending on the one that they feel comfortable shooting. Smuts said the clay shooting competition had 26 shooters including women and juniors.
“We are hosting competitions for exposure to the sport and to let people out there know about the sport of shooting. We encourage women and youngsters (from the age of seven) to come and shoot and we also teach them how to use firearms safely. We do rifle shooting, shotgun shooting and air rifle shooting. We are located at a BDF Botswana Defence Force] shooting range called Tsele Range outside Rasesa,” he said.
Smuts said a lot of people perceive firearms to have a ‘taboo’ stigma attached to them and that they cannot be touched or handled. “But this is not the case if people get proper training from a young age on how to handle a firearm safely and responsibly. The sport is enjoyed by all that are able to shoot and this is why we host competitions once a month for shooters to come and test their marksmanship against each other,” he said. Smuts said there are several registered shooting clubs around the country, which include Jwaneng, Tlokweng, Tuli Block, and Francistown.
He said at the moment some shooters from local clubs are international shooters and these are Smuts, Donald Inambao, Jaco De Villiers, and Dave Cohen. He said the shooters have participated in world championship events. Furthermore, shooting is an Olympic sport. “It is therefore very unfortunate that these individuals cannot and are unable to represent Botswana in international competitions since shooting is not registered as an association. They are forced to join South African clubs,” Smuts said.
