Cowboy Mounted Shooting is a sport that consists of a competitor riding a horse through a designated pattern of ten balloons. While riding through the course, a competitor is carrying two .45 caliber single-action revolving pistols. These pistols are used to shoot the ten balloons that are used to create the course. The scoring for this sport is based off of the time taken to shoot all balloons, and whether or not the competitor shot all of the balloons. I have been competing in this sport for a total of four years now and riding for eight years. This sport has grown incredibly since its creation, but the growth is restricted to just the United States. When I started this Graduation Project, I immediately knew that I wanted it to be based on Cowboy Mounted Shooting. While researching this topic, I came across the strange fact that very few outside of the United States were competing in Cowboy Mounted Shooting. My thesis for this project is that the growth of Cowboy Mounted Shooting is negatively affected by the tight gun laws that are in place in the world.

Cowboy Mounted Shooting is restricted to growth inside of the United States due to the tight gun laws that exist in other countries. My senior exit project is about bringing awareness to this subject and showing the amount of interest that there is to compete with a diverse population including individuals from other nations. This would allow the "world" competition to host competitors from every country instead of just citizens of the United States. Currently the "world" competition is held annually in Amarillo, Texas. On average, this competition hosts approximately 250 competitors. Every year that I have competed in this competition, I did not compete against anyone who was not a United States citizen. This was upsetting to me. I expected the World Championship to host competitors from multiple nations. When I finished my portion of the competition, I immediately questioned those who are in charge of CMSA as to why there where not any competitors from foreign nations. Their response was that the gun laws in the nations outside of the United States do not allow for guns to be owned by the everyday, normal citizen. This shocked me. I thought that every country had the same guidelines that the United States does. This of course was held in the views of a thirteen year old child who did not get an opportunity to travel off of the east coast. The names on this petition symbolize those that understand the restrictions Cowboy Mounted Shooting faces and the negative effects that these restrictions have on its growth.