As of this summer, the NRA National Smallbore Rifle Championships will no longer feature a women’s category.

Hold on, dear feminists who regularly read Bearing Arms, let me clarify. From now on, every shooter will be scored in a single group, regardless of gender, because in this kind of shooting there is clear equality among the sexes.

“There is a high degree of parity between men and women shooters in the smallbore championships,” said HQ Moody, national manager of NRA’s Rifle Department. “Our smallbore committee has discussed making the championships gender equitable for many years now and finally felt it was the right time to implement the change.”

YES MA’AM!!

The NRA Blog writes:

The women’s category was first introduced to the smallbore championships nearly 70 years ago. Back then, military shooters were dominating the field so convincingly that several new categories were created to recognize the accomplishments of civilian shooters. This move saw the creation of not just the Woman category, but also Junior and Senior. The latter two have since expanded even further (e.g. Grand Senior, Intermediate Junior) to accommodate the skill discrepancies within levels and they make perfect sense to have; junior shooters are generally more inexperienced and many seniors are affected by physical limitations.

In addition to several female military shooters, civilian women are now competing and winning in these shooting matches.

The NRA Board of Directors voted to make the change during their winter meetings this past January. While the change currently applies only to the NRA National Smallbore Rifle Championships, we may see this same move in other divisions as well.

“Women are rightly viewed as equals in today’s America,” said Moody. “Shouldn’t our championships reflect that attitude as well?”

Well done, ladies, and well done NRA!