Sport Shooting

So, are there any gun folks here on AW? This topic is for everyone regardless of what your sport is, be it skeet shooting, IPSC, biathlon, cowboy shooting, or whatever.

Currently I'm in an IPSC club and go to the range about once a week. Last Sunday I had my first ever IPSC competition (L1 production minor) and while I didn't win any prizes, I had a lot of fun even though I didn't like the loan gun, a SIG P226 I had to use 'cause my own, a Springfield Armory XD-9 is in the shop. Double action guns just clearly aren't for me but that didn't affect how interesting and challenging the stages were.

My dream is to also get to compete in one of the IPSC rifle divisions but since it's so difficult to get permits for any guns here, that likely won't happen for a few years more, alas.

Anyway, any other shooters here?

Dude... I have no idea what's been going on here. Well, the purpose of this thread is to discuss sport shooting, especially of the more action-y type like IPSC etc, not gun control, like Silver King said. I may have mentioned it in my intro post that I'm from Finland and, well, the news are available to those who look for them but I've been so busy with other things that I had no idea I posted this thread close to the time of the school shooting in the States. My apologies for the poor timing but it was wholly unintentional.

Anyway, I'm getting my beloved XD-9 back late this week or early next week and from there on in I'll get to do dry fire drills while watching TV. At this point my grip is getting pretty good and my recoil control is consequently also improved but it's not quite there yet and I have trouble regaining the sight picture and squeezing out follow-up shots.

Any ideas what's the culprit here? When I get the XD back, I can post some pictures just so I (and anybody else) can tear it apart, look for flaws, and then try to correct them because if you have a good, solid grip, recoil should be minimal in a 9x19mm, and that, in turn, would help minimize the time between shots... right?

Btw, when you go to the range/competition/practice dry fire at home, do you practice for the sport or for self-defense? I belong to the latter group and sometimes get funny looks if I do stuff like draw keeping the gun close to my body, break tunnel vision by glancing left and right after the stage etc.