History
The sport of practical shooting originated from competitions in California in the 1950s with the goal of developing handgun skills for defensive use, but quickly evolved into a pure sport with little grounding in the original purpose. The sport soon expanded to Europe, Australia, South America, and Africa. IPSC was founded in May 1976 when practical shooting enthusiasts from around the world participated at a conference held in Columbia, Missouri, creating a constitution and establishing the rules governing the sport. Jeff Cooper served as the first IPSC President. Today there are over 100 active IPSC regions, making practical shooting a major international sport which emphasizes firearms safety highly. Through international rules concerning firearms, equipment and organizing of matches one tries to unite the three elements precision, power and speed, which is also the motto of IPSC that is Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas (DVC), Latin for “precision, power, speed”. Only full caliber firearms are used, i.e. for handguns 9×19 mm is the smallest caliber, and the competitors try to achieve most points in the shortest time possible.
Today
The International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) is the world’s largest shooting sport association, and the largest and oldest within practical shooting. Founded in 1976, the IPSC nowadays affiliates over 100 regions from Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania. Competitions are held with pistol, revolver, rifle, and shotgun, and the competitors are divided into different divisions based on firearm and equipment features. While everyone in a division competes in the Overall category, there are also separate awards for the categories Lady (female competitors), Super Junior (under 16 years), Junior (under 21 years), Senior (over 50 years), and Super Senior (over 60 years).
IPSC’s activities include international regulation of the sport by approving firearms and equipment for various divisions, administering competition rules and education of range officials (referees) through the International Range Officers Association who are responsible for conducting matches safely, fair and according to the rules. IPSC organizes the World Championships called the Handgun World Shoot, Rifle World Shoot, and Shotgun World Shoot with three-year intervals for each discipline.