History

The Jamaica Rifle Association (JRA) is the regional directorate of IPSC in Jamaica since 1996, when Jamaica was first accepted as an IPSC region and fielded a team to the IPSC World Shoot in Brazil.

The JRA was first established in 1896, promoting the sport of target shooting in Jamaica. While its roots are in rifle shooting, the JRA has a strong tradition of pistol shooting competition within the Caribbean. In addition to IPSC, the JRA is the recognized national organization for the shooting sports in Jamaica, and is also affiliated with the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA), the International Confederation of Fullbore Rifle Associations (ICFRA), the National Rifle Association (Great Britain) and the International Sport Shooting Federation (ISSF). The shooting sports of the Commonwealth Games were first held at the 1966 games in Jamaica, at the facility now used as the JRA headquarters in Kingston.

The sport of practical shooting at the JRA began informally with competitions organized in the late 1970’s, and a “Practical Pistol Group” was constituted in the mid 1980’s to develop the sport alongside the other sporting arms of the association. The JRA formally affiliated with USPSA as a Foreign Classifier Affiliate club (#FCA-09) in 1992, and the USPSA has continued to provide valuable assistance over the years particularly with range officer training.

With an early focus on competitor skills, Jamaica has produced several outstanding IPSC shooters to include Ronald Brown and Anthony Johnson, who in turn played a leading role as instructors and have introduced many of our members to the sport over the years. Jamaica has since then been represented by teams at several World Shoot matches, and is now focused on the 2017 World Shoot in France.

In 2011, Jamaica began to develop training for local IPSC range officers using IROA materials, the National Range Officers Institute (NROI) was formally established, and the first international match, the Jamaica Invitation Pistol Tournament (JIPT) was held. The JIPT is held annually under USPSA rules on the weekend following  Easter, which coincides with the Jamaica Carnival celebrations and promises a fun-filled visit for shooters and their families. The JRA established a protocol for affiliation of other ranges with IPSC Jamaica in 2013, which allowed the sport to expand to partner clubs and their members across the island. In 2014, Jamaica held its first IPSC Level 3 match – the Caribbean Cup, which was next held in Aruba in 2015 and will next be hosted by Suriname. In 2015, we were honoured to assist the new IPSC region of Cayman Islands with holding their first Level 1 Range Officer Seminar to establish their NROI, and IPSC Barbados to conduct their first IPSC Level 3 match; we also fielded a small team of range officers to assist with the USA IPSC Nationals in Frostproof, Florida.

The next project now in progress is a safe competitor training certification, modelled on IPSC Canada’s “Black Badge” program.