Weapons can be used for recreation, concentration training, relaxation, sports, but they can also be used for killing and as such do indescribable damage. The history of weapons is as old as man. Ever since humanity has existed, people have fought with or without weapons for their existence or because of friction.
As with all other living things, humanity feels the need to protect its own existence. This includes providing food and protecting one's own species. We are omnivores, omnivores, and so we have tools for hunting and also for preparing plant and animal food. Over the last 2.5 million years, weapons have been constantly evolving, allowing for new possibilities in its processing, new materials, and ever new inventions. The improvement of weapons did not depend solely on the development of technology, but also on the cultural development and development of society. Hardly any branch of industry has had more innovations in its history than the armaments industry. From a very early age, it encouraged and accelerated research in the fields of chemistry, physics, metallurgy, materials research, machining techniques, internal and external ballistics, to name a few.
However, shooting has always been a recreation and sport and has required special individual abilities. Sport and recreational shooting was especially developed in Europe, where bourgeois shooting societies, also called shooting fraternities or shooting glides, have a long and rich tradition dating back to the 12th century. It is known that the first serious shooting championship was held as early as 1442 in Zurich, as shooting was well developed in the countries of the then Central Europe and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. That shooting guides were of great importance in history is also shown by the fact that they were often depicted by renowned painters, both in Slovenia (Karinger, Šubic) and in Europe. One of the greatest Dutch painters, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), painted a almost 16 m2 canvas entitled Night Watch. In one of the largest group portraits, the master painted members of the shooting fraternity. This painting is also one of Rembrandt’s most important paintings.
Looking back, we must not forget our long and rich history of shooting, which writes in its city chronicles that on July 14, 1562, the Ljubljana Shooting Association organized the first large free shooting at the bourgeois shooting range in Ljubljana.
Sport shooting developed further and became an Olympic discipline as early as 1896, at the first modern annual Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Probably mainly thanks to their founder Pierre de Coubertin, who was also an avid gun shooter himself.
Why is shooting so appealing and interesting to many?
At first glance, shooting is not a dynamic and active sport at all, but behind everything we see and even find boring, there is hard work, discipline and concentration, concentration and concentration again. Top shooters train at least once a day and the training consists not only of shooting, but mainly of endurance and coordination training.
In order to become a successful sports shooter, you need not only a calm hand and perfect concentration, but also good physical fitness and, above all, excellent fitness. Athletes have to endure in front of targets for four hours in major competitions, and in addition to the often heavy and cumbersome equipment that helps them with stability, they always have to hold several kilograms of heavy weapons in their hands completely calmly.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and learned a little more about this topic. I wish you happy holidays and send you a big greeting. @marilovic
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I support weapons for recreation and sports. Hunting by no means. Our Jasna Šekarić reached the world top with effort, work, good condition and great concentration.