I agree with you.
Around my parts here, we don;'t have many shooters. In fact I would say that 95% are hunters ..and don''t consider themselves shooters.
But I think that is because we are so small a community and don't have any ranges ( our ranges are our back yards, cause most live in the country) so maybe that is why hunters that don't shoot at ranges or shoot competitively do not consider themselves to be shooters, and only hunters..when in fact if you are hunting you hopefully are shooting..so they have to be a shooter to be a hunter ..but they don't have to be a hunter to be a shooter.
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(My gosh.. did I really say all of that without taking a breath?)

and did anyone actually understand a damned word I said?
We call people that do not set in a stand or a turkey blind "shooters" cause they just drive around and when they see game they jump out and shoot at it. That to me is NOT hunting.
But I do think that hunting is not as prevailant as it was..say 10 years ago.. Lots of changes have put the kinks to it.
I do think that shooting for fun and competitively is becoming more popular than ever before.