Sport shooters in Poland: social capital of organizational engagement vs access to guns policy controversies

Abstract

The article presents sport shooting in Poland against a socio-political background. First, Polish society after the anti-communist breakthrough is diagnosed as a country lacking social capital and social trust in particular. In this context, membership in sport clubs, treated as a form of social involvement, is very desirable, as it expands the network of social cooperation. However, being a sport shooter is also associated with access to weapons, which is always controversial, even if Poland has low rates of access to firearms for citizens. The authors conducted research (CAWI, N = 253) on sport shooters in Poland. The results (opinions of sport shooters) are analyzed in three contexts: possession of a weapon and attitude towards a weapon (motivation to engage in sport shooting), sport shooting clubs (analysis of sport shooting organizations in Poland), and the image of a sport shooter (assessment of sport shooters’ image in Polish society). A basic problem that emerges from the empirical analysis is the heterogeneous interpretation of sport shooting by the shooters themselves. Shooting can be seen in terms of sport (an activity aimed at self-improvement and competition) as well as an activity with out-of-sport goals (patriotic, educational, and defensive). Different definitions of joint activity may lead to interpretative (of meaning) tensions and ultimately to conflicts within the examined category of people.

Keywords

• sport shooters
• access to guns
• social capital
• sport organizations
• organizational engagement
• sport for development