Today saw the next chapter in the endless battle between Polish Sport Shooting Federation and ordinary shooters. After previous attempts to amend the Shooting Patent regulations were met with strong resistance from the shooting community, which even led to a ministerial inspection, the federation is now quietly introducing further changes.
Without any public announcement, a new version of the regulation was adopted, and the PDF files on the server were simply replaced without informing anyone of the changes.
What has changed this time? It seems minor, but in reality it’s quite significant.
According to Article 6a of the new regulation, the shooting patent is no longer a lifetime document and can be revoked — quite easily, in fact. If the holder does not have at least one active license — athlete’s, referee’s, coach’s or instructor’s — meaning they do not renew it by March 31 of the following year, they will lose their patent. The only way to regain it will be to repeat the entire process: preparatory course, medical examination, and passing the federation's exam again.
Additionally, the patent exam is only valid until December 31 of the year following the date it was passed. If by then the shooter does not apply for an athlete’s license, the exam becomes void.
Active members of the shooting community have rightly raised a storm online, but as one might expect, the Polish Sport Shooting Federation is deaf to outside criticism.
At first glance, the change may not seem too alarming, but there are two issues that can cause serious problems.
First, until now, if someone needed to take a break from shooting for any reason (life situation, health, time), they could easily return to the sport later. Now, a break formally means the end of the hobby and starting over from scratch.
Second, we must not forget that Polish Sport Shooting Federation has a habit of making life difficult for clubs it doesn’t like, delaying the issuance of club licenses. It’s easy to imagine a situation in which the federation refuses or significantly delays issuing a license to a certain club, preventing its members from applying for athlete’s licenses and thereby causing them to automatically lose their shooting patents.
For years, the Polish Sport Shooting Federation has, for unclear reasons, been fighting against sport shooters, even though according to the Sports Act, it should be supporting them. For some incomprehensible reason, the federation cannot accept that any form of shooting exists other than ISSF-based disciplines (i.e. classical static shooting), and it’s completely beyond their comprehension that shooting can be practiced as a hobby rather than for Olympic competition.
The only practical way to “immunize” oneself against the whims of this rigid organization is to obtain a firearms license for collector purposes (either full or sport) and accept the lack of options to borrow or carry firearms.
