More on the Dutch Shooting Sports Proposed Ban

This proposed ban will not only ban action rifle, IPSC, and IDPA type shooting, it will also ban Steel Challenge.

When you sign the petition, you enter your email, and then you will be sent a confirmation email explaining how to confirm your signature. This way they know you are who you say you are, and that your signature is valid. You MUST confirm your signature, or it does not go on the petition.

Here's the email they will send you:

Dear (Your Name),
The website is petities.nl the petition "Dynamic disciplines must remain" signed from e-mail address magaero@whidbey.com on Sat 31 Mar 2012 9:03:03 p.m. named (Your name). Do you disagree, please ignore this email.
You can confirm your signature by clicking on this sentence. Then you arrive on a web page where you press the [confirm] can click. If you do, you can then see your signature under the petition back to the present day, provided you confirm chose a publicly visible signature. You can also decide later your name visible or invisible by again from this e-mail to that page and make your choice.
To confirm your signature you may also copy this link to a window with an internet address line:http://petities.nl/ondertekening/c097eda8339fdaf5b874b4c2xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThis email is confidential because only (your name) with address (your email) can confirm the signing. Please send this message through and make it public with a unique link only for you. Do you share this email with others, than only the last data entered.
Tip: if you want to invite people to also sign? Then you can refer to them http://beschermschietsport.petities.nl/ or standard mail request after you have confirmed through the above link. If you send yourself an invitation, then you can e-mail forwarding to others.
Note: many people find themselves months or years later as a signatory of a petition petities.nl as they search with their names do. If you do not want future employers, clients or other acquaintances you can see that a certain petition supports, please check that you want to sign invisible. If you do this after your name has been visible a few weeks then it takes again a few weeks before the search engines notice this and your name to a petition does not show up in search.
Sincerely,
Foundation Petities.nl

Here's a Google translation of the below petition. It's a rough translation, but you can get a pretty good idea of what it says.  

"We believe that the Minister is not sufficiently accurate knowledge to such a decision to make." 

Even in translation, that's certainly tactful, but the meaning is loud and clear!


Although this looks like a working version of the petition, please go to the original petition website listed in the post below this one to actually sign the petition.

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PETITION

We, marksmen, members of the 714 rifle and 40000 + members KNSA note

Minister Opstelten that tomorrow or the day will send a message to the House in which he indicates that he intends the dynamic disciplines such as practiced by NPSA and APS ban.
This despite the position of the KNSA that they have no objection dynamic disciplines, if properly regulated as to the NPSA.

Lists over 1000 athletes wrongly punished!

and requests all marksmen to be united to sign so that our grievances can be heard.

We urge the Minister to reconsider his decisions Be it dialogue with us to find. We believe that the Minister is not sufficiently accurate knowledge to such a decision to make.

I,

residing at

sign the petition Dynamic disciplines should continue.
my name and address may be visible under the public petition.
e-mail address

We'll email you a link to your signature can confirm. Your information will not be disclosed to third parties and remain with the Foundation Petities.nl. Read more about this in our privacy policy .

Help Save Action Shooting in Holland

I got this in an email from one of my shooting friends in Holland. The original email was written by Saul Kirsch. Some of you probably already know Saul. He's also the head of Double Alpha Academy, and he manufactures a lot of competition items, including some really nice holsters.

The petition mentioned in Saul's email is in Dutch, and I have already requested that an English translation be posted along with the petition, if possible. Although we are not necessarily Dutch constituents, if there is a big world wide response to the petition, that can't but help the cause to keep IPSC, and other action pistol disciplines from being outlawed.Give or friends in Holland a hand!

Saul's email:

Urgent - Your Action is Needed Now!

Dear fellow IPSC shooters and friends,

As many of you have heard already, IPSC shooting (in fact all Dynamic shooting disciplines) are about to be prohibited in the Netherlands!

This new law will be voted on in a matter of weeks, and if it passes – will mean the end of our sport in Holland, and who knows – this decision may well spread quickly across the EU.

As you can imagine, the NPSA (the Dutch IPSC organization) is mobilizing every possible resource to fight this unjust proposed law, but it is  a desperate battle. The odds are stacked against us.

We need your help!

There is a petition being signed (online) which will be submitted along with other material as we  try to make our case for our sport.

You can help by going online and signing this petition. The more signatures we have, the better.

Please also take a moment to forward this email to anyone you can think of who could generate more signatures, your shooting range, your club,  your federation, your local gunsmiths who may be able to send it on to their mailing list. Post it online on any website you have access to.

We want to show that IPSC is a serious sport, with thousands of participants worldwide.

Please take a minute to log onto this site:

http://petities.nl/petitie/dynamische-disciplines-moeten-blijven

Scroll down, where it says “Ik” –  you fill in  your name

- Where it says ”wonede te” you fill in your city and country.

- Tick the checkbox if  you want to allow your name to be shown on the list.

- Enter your email address

- And click the yellow box “ondertekenen” to sign the petition.

Many thanks for your participation in our fight.

Best Regards,

Saul Kirsch
General Manager
Double-Alpha Academy B.V.

Amsterdam 2010 Pictures

Here's the final batch of pictures from our trip to Holland, visiting Winterswijk for the European Steel Challenge Championships, and then spending one full day in Amsterdam sight-seeing before our flight home.

KeeWee looking for cards and such.

The Tram that runs all around Amsterdam. Didn't ride it though, as we chose to walk as we were just sight-seeing, rather than trying to go to any place in particular.

Even with the garbage strike, and with garbage bags piled high in places, Amsterdam is relatively clean, at least as cities go. This is a typical side street.

This stone and marble building has been turned into a shopping mall, of sorts. Each floor has several shops and businesses.

Canals everywhere.

One of the busier main streets.

Out for a sunny cruise. Talk about "Stylin' !"

A courtyard and fountain we discovered.

A very nicely maintained houseboat in one of the canals.

Kind of odd architecture, but it looked like a pretty up-scale place, none the less.

Cobblestones, canals, bicycles, beautiful old churches and buildings everywhere.

KeeWee thought this was an interesting place.

Some of the horse-drawn carriages in Dam Square that you can rent to drive you around town sight-seeing. Very expensive, though.

Some sort of airport fire training facility at the Schiphol Amsterdam airport. We taxied past it on our way out to the runway to head home.

The Schiphol Control Tower and main terminal from our A-330 as we were taxiing out to the departure runway.

Still taxiing out. Schiphol is an airport that covers a lot of ground.

After taxiing for a while, we taxied  over an overpass over a freeway.

The overpass continued over a canal parallel to the freeway.

After all the taxiing, we finally reached the departure runway and headed home. Ten and a half hours later we landed in Seattle. It had been a long six days with some major highlights and lowlights, but it was a great trip in spite of  everything.

I hope we can manage to go back next year. After all, somebody needs to represent the US of A over there! Why not us, indeed?

European Steel Challenge - Day 1

We managed to arrive here in Winterswijk, Holland with any major calamities enroute. Tired, but intact. I've got Blog Station Winterswijk set up in the back corner of the office at the shooting range where the match is being held. We will be pretty busy with the match, but I should be able to blog a bit too.

More details and info later, but for now we're going downstairs to watch the first day of the match.

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Update: We went downstairs to the range and watched a number of  the shooters shoot this morning. There are anumber of good shooters here, and I can see that Karin Luyendijk is doing well and is certainly a favorite in the Centerfire Ladies category. KeeWee and I are still jet lagged from the trip and time zone changes, but we are recovering a bit. After watching some of the competition, we headed back to the hotel for a nap. I think we were alseep before our heads hit the pillows!

We need to have it all together by tomorrow morning, as that's when we shoot. I will shoot in the morning starting at 8:45, and KeeWee starts at 1:15, so I will be finished before she starts, so I can follow her around and be pit crew, so to speak. It's a bit dark in the ranges, so non-flash pictures don't come out too well. We are going back downstairs to the range when I finish this post update, so I will play around a bit with the camera settings and see if I can get better pictures.

More later............

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European Steel Challenge Video

Just to prove that I really WAS at the European Steel Challenge Championships and that I didn't spend the week hanging out in "Coffee Houses" in Amsterdam, here's a video from the very first stage of the match I shot:



This was a fun stage, and it even went according to plan. I deliberately slowed down a little and shot a safe run on the fourth run so I could shoot a risky run on the final string. It worked out, and the fifth run was my fastest run. I wish they'd ALL go according to plan......

Almost forgot to thank Cris R. for the video!

European Steel Challenge - Part 1

Friday morning bright and early KeeWee and I grabbed an excellent, although horribly expensive breakfast at the Golden Tulip Centre Hotel in Amsterdam. Shortly after breakfast we checked out of our room and headed downstairs to wait outside the hotel for Wim, our designated driver, chaperone, tour guide, and just all around "Cool Dude" to ride out to Winterswijk, where the Steel Challenge Championships will be held. Winterswijk is pronounced approximately vinters - vike, but the Dutch W although pronounced mostly as a V, it has a little of the W still there. It's kind of hard to explain, you have to hear it. Regardless, no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn't get it to sound quite right. Too many years speaking "Americun" I guess.

Wim and KeeWee at a gas station on the way to Winterswijk.

Looks like most any other gas station, although they have LPG at the pump, and you don't need a key for the restrooms.

A working windmill we saw along the way. Built in 1851, and probably re-built and updated a few times, but still a working windmill.

Mr. C and KeeWee outside the clubhouse.

The clubhouse where the match was held.

It's an interesting facility where the match was held. The upper floor houses a very nice bar, meeting rooms, and a small bore range. The basement is all pistol bays, where the match itself was shot. A huge fan and duct system sucks all the dust, smoke, and lead vapors out of the building.

The Club's bar. Is that Rob at the right end? I have a hard time reconnecting the names and faces, but a great guy, even if I'm not sure of the correct name!

Looking the other way from the bar.

The small bore range was converted to a large meeting room for the trophy ceremony. An embroidery machine was set up and running almost all day every day embroidering custom match shirts with your name over the pocket. Beautiful shirts. More about the shirts later.

The Golden Tulip Hotel in Winterswijk and the range and clubhouse were only a few minutes walk apart, so we didn't need a car at all. After checking in to our hotel in Winterswijk and checking out the range and clubhouse it was time to get something for dinner. A bunch of the range officers and officials were planning to have dinner together at a Chinese buffet restaurant across the street from the hotel, and they asked us if we'd like to join them. We forgot to take a camera, but the food was good, the conversations excellent, and a grand time was had by all!

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep, as 8:45am the next morning was my start time. We had breakfast in the morning with some of the folks we had met last night at dinner, then headed out to the range. Between jet lag and the time zone differences, my body was fully convinced that I should be sound asleep.

*** Must *** Wake *** Up ****

Fortunately for groggy people the stages were well marked.

A typical stage setup. The distances were the sameas, or even a little longer than the standard Steel Challenge dimensions, but the width was narrowed a bit to fit the range width. The plates were easy to see, but with the noise level, it was hard to hear hits. The tires around the plates keep lead splatter from knocking out the lights.

The night before at dinner we had a lot of fun kidding around, and I suggested that old slow shooters needed a little extra help, particularly on "Outer Limits" where you shoot two plates from one box, then move to a second box to shoot the next two and the stop plate. They suggested they could record my times with a calendar, rather than with the shot timer. Sometimes it feels like that!

When I got to the Outer Limits stage, on of the range officers came over with a hand truck to wheel me around from box to box!

Hand truck for the old slow shooters!

This just might work!

By the time we stopped fooling around we were all laughing so hard it was difficult to focus on the shooting!

OK, down to business. "Shooter, load and make ready."

Focus-Focus-Focus - respond to the start of the beep.

Closed stance, feet close together, weight on forward foot for a good push off towards the second box. Right foot pointed in the direction I want to go without looking down. Don't miss!

Keep the gun up, look through the sight for the third plate as you are moving. Three strong steps, weight on rear foot, right foot just inside the box. Shooting off of rear foot, don't shoot over the top of the targets. Push to the stop plate, it's the easiest to hit.

In spite of all the fooling around, Outer Limits turned out to be one of my better stages for the day. My fastest run was 4.03 seconds, which, I think, was the fastest single run on that stage for the match.

-- end of Part 1 --

KeeWee's Amsterdam Pictures

KeeWee's got a whole bunch more pictures from Amsterdam posted on KeeWee's Corner.

Check it out!

Amsterdam Streets

After our canal boat tour in Amsterdam, we spent the rest of the day wandering around the streets sight-seeing. When we returned to Amsterdam from Winterswijk after the Steel Challenge Championships we also had a full day for sight-seeing, and we spent most of that day also just walking around looking at canals, buildings, flower markets, the head shops, the red light district and the sex museum and other interesting and educational sights....



I put most of the Amsterdam street scene pictures into a slide show. If you click on any picture, it will display at a large size for you.

Hope you enjoy them!

Holland - Part 2 in Babelfish Dutch

(Babelfish translations are often hilarious, so for our Dutch friends, here's the post below after a babelfish translation)

Nadat wij binnen geregeld aan onze hotelruimte in Amsterdam werden en een beetje rustten, beslisten wij te gaan krijgen in een klein middag sightseeing. In Amsterdam van absoluut moeten-doe activiteiten is de kanaalrondvaart van de stad. Amsterdam heeft overal kanalen en zij allen worden als spokes van een wiel met de hub opgemaakt die het centrale station is. De boten van de kanaalreis zijn lang, smal, en laag, zodat zullen zij onder de bruggen passen en zullen de smallere kanalen verslaan. Het manoeuvreren van één van die lange smalle boten door de kanalen en het maken van negentig gradendraaien met slechts een paar voeten aan reserveonderdelen namen sommige eerder indrukwekkende boot behandelende vaardigheden, zelfs gebruikend de boog-stuwraketten.

De cruiseboten van het kanaal in de haven naast het station.

Uit het venster van de reisboot.

Indrukwekkende gebouwen, vele honderden oude jaren.

Wij zagen boten van alle grootte en beschrijvingen die de kanalen kruisen.

Af en toe was er heel wat kanaalverkeer.

Een garage van het drie verhaalparkeren voor fietsen.

Het weer was aardig, zodat was de bovenkant open.

De meeste kanalen zijn slechts drie tot zes voet diep, zodat moet alles zeer ondiep ontwerp zijn.

Het beeld doet geen rechtvaardigheid aan de schoonheid van deze boot.

Er waren veel overal de boten van de kanaalcruise.

Als u ooit aan Amsterdam wordt, zorg ervoor u één van de kanaalrondvaarten neemt. Het is één van de beste manieren om een gevoel voor de plaats te krijgen. Een andere moet enkel weggaan en te voet wandelen rond. Wij deden wat van dat. ook, en ik zal beelden van de straatscènes in de volgende post hebben.

-- eind van deel 2 --

European Steel Challenge - Part 2

After we got settled in to our hotel room in Amsterdam and rested a bit, we decided to go get in a little afternoon sight-seeing. In Amsterdam on of the absolute must-do activities is the canal boat tour of the city. Amsterdam has canals everywhere and they are all laid out like spokes of a wheel with the hub being the central train station. The canal tour boats are long, narrow, and low, so they will fit under the bridges and down the narrower canals. Maneuvering one of those long narrow boats through the canals and making ninety degree turns with only a few feet to spare took some rather impressive boat handling skills, even using the bow-thrusters.

Canal cruise boats in the harbor next to the train station.

Out the window of the tour boat.

Impressive buildings, many hundreds of years old.

We saw boats of all sizes and descriptions cruising the canals.

At times there was a lot of canal traffic.

A three story parking garage for bicycles.

The weather was nice, so the top was open.

Most of the canals are only three to six feet deep, so everything must be very shallow draft.

The picture doesn't do justice to the beauty of this boat.

There were lots of canal cruise boats everywhere.

If you ever get to Amsterdam, make sure you take one of the canal boat tours. It's one of the best ways to get a feel for the place. Another is to just get out and wander around on foot. We did some of that. too, and I'll have pictures of the street scenes in the next post.

-- end of part 2 --