I don't want to say too much because I do not know what my directors would think but this is what I feel comfortable sharing:
I have been at a camp in Cali since May 3, becuase my finals as a college student ended insanely early so I came here for the month instead of sitting around until June 1. They run a spring program along with the weekends, so I've been working where I can. I am the archery RSO for the summer, so I run the archery range when the program allows and in the kitchen the rest of the time. This week we had no kids wanting to do archery so I have been at the kitchen all week. My area director has been at camp school this entire month for training, and on Wednesday mid-day I recieved a call from her telling me to shut down all archery if I was there, immediately. Thankfully nobody was doing archery, but it was described as a "nation-wide cease fire".
Later that day I recieved an email about it from the spring program director with further details, but no mention of TAC.
This weekend we have a group coming that wanted to do a ton of field sports, all 4 activities (shotgun rifle bb's and archery). The schedule was emailed Thursday night with no field sports listed on it. Afternoon today I received an email that included all 4 activities again. Next week's kids wanted to do a lot of archery, as well, which I am assuming is now on again as well.
I had no doubt we would be doing archery for the summer, but this event does make me think BSA is tightening its clutches on field sports more and more. I do not know if this is just my camp or a nation-wide thing, but I was told last summer that in 2025 (this summer) we would completely stop calling it shooting sports, we don't refer to the guns and bows as "weapons" but instead as "tools", and we do not call it shooting we call it firing. I am not comfortable with this change and I 100% disagree with it, but it seems to be the way BSA is going. At what point will they shut down the guns forever? Cub scouts (to my knowledge) are only allowed BB's and archery. When will that standard be applied to all scouts, including the teenagers?
By the way, I disagree with the change because the scouts NEED to know the danger of these weapons. When we remove these terms it makes it seem less dangerous, even with all our stressings of the 3 rules. If you are giving a scout a .22, that scout should be told they are shooting and not firing. They should be told how dangerous this gun can be. They need to be told that if they shoot it without hearing protection their ears will receive PERMANENT hearing damage, not just "will hurt your ears!". I also understand yes they are children as young as 11 but when you entrust them with a WEAPON that can KILL somebody they need to know that, otherwise they will treat it as a nerf gun.
I could go on about this for ages. But to me, this event won't improve safety in any noticeable way. It will simply strengthen BSA's case to shut down all shooting sports, for good.
Also, communication-wise, it might just be me but I think BSA needed to do a lot more communication than whatever little tendrils they did. None of what I have learned has been from official channels, it has been from forums like this and word of mouth.
