Rare breed - registered trapshooters - something in the genes?

Found out on "Facebook" that I had a cousin who died. I hadn't seen him in over 50 years. His family moved to Florida in the 50s then he moved up east after college.

I "googled" his name and found his obit in a paper up east. The obit mentioned that he was a trapshooter. I went to the ATA website and did a search of his name and found out he shot ATA for a few years, though he hadn't registered any in the last 9-10 years.

Then I got to thinking. He and I both had registered trapshooting in common, wonder what the odds of that were?

Back in the early 90s a local guy went and counted how many shooters there were in the ATA yearbook. Can't remember the exact number but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of mid to low 30 thousands. That was 25 - 30 years ago, I'm betting there are fewer today.

Anyway with a current guess estimate of 350 million people in this country today and using a generous ATA guess of 35,000 (to keep math simple) that means only 0.0001 percent of the population shoots registered birds. And if I'm doing the math right that would mean ONLY ONE OUT OF 10,000 people shoot registered trap???

I bring that up and think -1 out of 10,000 and MY cousin (who I hadn't seen in 50 years) was one out of those 10,000 like me.

Then I got to thinking about my family - I know of 5 cousins on my Dad's side who have shot registered trap. That is not unusual since those 5 grew up around trapshooting at local clubs, but the cousin who moved away - 60 years ago and ended up living 1,000 miles away - how did he get involved in the sport?? Maybe there is something in our genes that makes us trapshooters???

Anyway - registered trapshooters are a Rare Breed - only 1 out of 10,000, and I'm betting with actual current numbers we are probably closer to being 1 out of 15, 16K?

I just did a google search - The odds of being struck by lightning in one year is 1 out of 700K. The odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime is 1 out of 3K. So the average person in the US has a better chance of being hit by lightning once in their lifetime than shooting a round of registered trap. And I've had both happen to me, got hit by lightning and shot registered. Shooting registered has had a far greater negative impact (financial) on my life than being hit by lightning. LOL

 

Perhaps the small % of the population involved in trap is indicative of some mental defect among the shooters

 

I think you are on to something Semperfi909.

 

While not all ATA trapshooters are mentally defective, from what I've seen on the other website some of them could use the help of a good psychologist.
Or, maybe, it's a case of shooting trap bringing out the best in men, getting on a trapshooting forum brings out the worst.

 

Trapshooters are perfectionists, and gamblers relying solely on their own capabilities to win, at least until it becomes a social event. Always seeking that perfect score. Perhaps, in society as a whole perfectionist's represent that percentage or a little more. Maybe, that extra percentage means spreading the population out among other perfectionist pursuits? Did I make myself clear, just wondering?