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Dave Baskin retires from NRA
On November 2, 2007, Dave Baskin retired after close to thirteen years as manager of the National Rifle Association's Disabled Shooting Services. Under Baskin's guidance, this unique department earned a worldwide reputation for it's technical excellence and innovation, which resulted in many advancements for the more than 50 million Americans with disabilities.
Dave came to the NRA after coaching the United States Wheelchair Shooting Team to an outstanding record of 253 medals, seven world and 16 Pan-American records in international competition. This record established him as the most successful coach of disabled marksmen in United States shooting sports history. In addition, Baskin was newly retired from working 33 years for an engineering firm that designed and built equipment for hospital critical care applications.
 During his tenure as coach, Dave noticed many important benefits that a certain form of rifle shooting could provide to a recently disabled person. In early 1994, he began designing the NRA Rehabilitative Shooting Unit, which applies a precision air rifle as a tool for physical therapists to utilize in the rehabilitation of their post-injury inpatients. The unit provides health care professionals with a unique method of improving their patients' refined motor control skills, trunk balance, concentration proficiency, breath control and self-esteem. The first unit was installed September 1994, at the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama. International recognition for this ground breaking unit came in September 2000, when one was placed in service at the National Rehabilitation Hospital of Ireland, in Dublin.
The NRA-Beeman Grand Prix Championship was developed by Baskin in 1996, as a precision air rifle and air pistol tour to promote awareness and respect for the achievements of marksmen with disabilities. The past eleven years have seen the tour conduct 133 events in 27 different cities, located in 16 states and two Canadian provinces. The tour has projected a broad demographic appeal with the result that four of the grand champions have been female, three of Hispanic heritage, two veterans and one Native American. The appeals across ethnic, age and gender lines, was the result of a performance based formula combined with the equalization of each person's physical shooting sports function. This combination produced a parity of competition that encouraged all participants to invest their time and effort in the sport.
In 1998, the NRA-Beeman introduced the nation's first set of national records for marksmen with disabilities. On July 8, 2005, the tour pioneered the inclusion of visually impaired/blind shooters into a precision marksmanship event, which was accomplished through the use of laser technology.
Dave conducted the first NRA Shooting Sports Disability Awareness Seminar in 1996, for the master hunter education instructors of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The educational seminar covers such important topics as the early history of disabled sports and recreation, event planing, disabled sport classification systems, medical considerations, accessibility issues and the primary theory of adaptive sports equipment design. A wide variety of groups have availed themselves of the seminar, including government fish and game agencies, special education teacher's associations, veterans organizations, stage AgrBility programs, university accessibility projects, disabled sportsmen's associations and competition sanctioning bodies. The seminars have proven very popular in the United States, with several having been conducted in Canada, Norway and Australia.
Baskin's research projects have resulted in many advancements for hunters and shooters with disabilities, including the single arm shotgun, visually impaired/blind marksmanship procedures, rehabilitative pistol rest and specialized adaptive shooting techniques that have assisted thousands of Americans to participate in their favorite outdoor sports and recreation activities. It has been Dave's custom to not patent any of his adaptive designs, instead choosing to donate them to the public domain, so they may benefit as many disabled sportsmen as possible. In an effort to further increase public awareness of the adaptive advancements, ha has authored over 200 articles.
Dave also helped to pioneer shooting sports programs inside of veterans hospitals. In 1992, he conducted the first program at St. Albans V.A Hospital in New York City. As word of the successful venture spread, it led to more visits to veterans facilities from Tampa, Florida, to Brockton, Massachusetts. The many visits resulted in the establishment of the NRA/Bronx V.A/American Legion Marksmanship League, which has served the veterans at the James J. Peters V.A Medical Center, for over nine years.
In 2004, Walter Reed Army Medical Center named Baskin as one of only two officially designated collaborators on a landmark pilot program. The object of the program was to use a shooting simulator for training U.S. veterans injured in Iraq, in the adaptive use of military firearms for the purpose of qualifying to return to active duty status. The program, which offers the nation's disabled military personnel new options, was dedicated and went into operation on June 23, 2005.
Of all the NRA services provided to hunters, marksmen and gun owners, the opportunity to personally speak with Dave and receive confidential guidance on a disability related problem, would probably be considered the most important by many Americans. Over the course of thirteen years his calls have numbered more than 5,000 annually. The questions ranged from locating a specific type of adaptive equipment for the parent of a disabled youngster, to selecting recoil protection for a person with a recently installed heart pacemaker. He also advised hunter safety instructors, sportsmen & gun glub leaders, and commercial range operators, on how to accommodate disabled citizens into their programs. Dave spent as much time as necessary to solve each individual's special challenge, often placing a followup call to see if they had any other questions or concerns.
Many honors were bestowed upon Baskin for his work with America's disabled population. In 2000, Dave received the individual Shooting Industry Academy of Excellence Award, joining distinguished past winners as Charlton Heston, William Ruger and Wayne La Pierre. Early this year, he became the first person from the shooting sports to ever be inducted into the Wheelchair Sports USA Hall of Fame.
For almost thirteen years, Dave Baskin has been the friendly and helpful voice of the National Rifle Association the the nation'l large disabled community. He leaves a legacy of successful adaptive programs and technological advancements for future generations to build upon.
| We regret to announce that the NRA/Beeman Program has been cancelled.
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