The local ABC affiliate in Ventura County (I love Ventura) has some pretty positive coverage of the Steel Challenge championship!
Alicia Setting and Molly Smith are both 11 years old and are among the world’s best pistol shooters. They are two girls who say they enjoy guns over dolls.
Alicia can fire a pistol at five targets, hitting the bull’s-eye on each of them in a blistering four seconds. Molly is just as fast. They are both competing in the preteen division in the Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championship.
Not only is it good coverage, but they manage to portray young girls shooting as a positive thing. I’m actually a little surprised that this came from an MSM outlet – normally this sort of coverage would be full of PSH about children and guns. ABC 7 from Ventura gets a “bravo zulu” for this.
Now, to talk a bit about Steel Challenge World Championships – if you haven’t seen one of these before, you really should. I’m sure that Shooting USA or Shooting Gallery will have an episode about this match, but it really is the fastest shooting sport ever. They run a set of predefined stages, and man do this men and women run those guns fast.
The best part about Steel Challenge is how “all inclusive” it is – even though it was recently purchased by USPSA, Steel Challenge matches included competitive categories for everyone from IDPA shooters, rimfire shooters, and even Cowboy Action Shooters. That’s right, you can go to the Steel Challenge World Championships to see if you’re literally “the fastest gun in the west”.
Awesome.
I called the station at 818) 863-7777 and was put through to the voicemail of Leo Stallworth, the author of the piece. I left a message identifying myself and thanking him for his fine report, and mentioning that there are lots of us out here who are starving for quality journalism in this vein, so he and his report are greatly appreciated.
This is great coverage!
I heart steel 🙂